Double Exposure
by Huitzil
Summary: An accident causes the Pharaoh 90 to be driven off before Sailor Saturn can sacrifice herself. But he's not gone for long, and now the Senshi are flying blind, the Hoffmann Institute in over their heads, and Hotaru faces a hard choice about herself.
1. Double Vision

Author's Notes:

This is a crossover between Sailor Moon and the DARK∙MATTER campaign setting for the Alternity science-fiction roleplaying game. If you don't know what that is, and I know you don't, I will explain.

The world of DARK∙MATTER resembles our own superficially, but only because shadowy powers are working to hide everything that would make it seem unusual. A world where aliens secretly influence human society, mysterious cyborgs plot to infect and replace humanity in secret, people born with strange psychic powers are whisked away to clandestine government labs under cover of darkness never to be seen again, demons walk the shadows sowing fear and unrest, the Freemasons and the UN plot to instutite a New World Order, and Lee Harvey Oswald most certainly did not act alone. It's a world of paranoia and conspiracy straight out of the dreams of the most fevered Usenet kook.

The incidences of strange, unexplainable phenomena such as telepathy, magic, extradimensional visitors, and Chupacabras are tied to a phenomenon known as the "Dark Tide", or the density of dark matter in the galaxy. A rising Dark Tide, as there is currently, results in an increase in the strange and unexplainable all over the world, but especially around mysterious subterranean phenomena known as "dark matter gateways", things that, when the Dark Tide is high enough to activat them, are the nexus for all kinds of strange phenomena.

The player characters in the setting are assumed to be members of the Hoffmann Institute, a private agency run by a man named Itohiro Nakami and tasked with researching, understanding, and combating threats to humankind caused by the rising Dark Tide. Think of them as being kind of like the "X-Files", but not working for the government, and with nowhere near the budget. The four Hoffmann Institute agents seen here are four of the six sample characters provided for the introductory adventure at the front of the book, "Exit 23", in which a random group of people are trapped at an Idaho truck stop in the midst of a hellish snowstorm and are besieged by a mysterious ice-demon.

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

"I take it you are the people sent from the Institute?" said the thin, nervous looking Japanese man as he pulled open the sliding glass door.

"You'd be correct. Doctor Phillip Akens, Hoffmann Institute." He was a tall, dignified-looking African-American, around forty, his hair just starting to grey at the edges. He extended an opened hand, which the Japanese man stared at for a few seconds before Akens retracted it with a nervous cough. "These are my colleagues, Doctor Nadine Neary, Doctor Donna Truitt, and Mister William Wheeler." He gestured behind him and pointed to, in turn, a small, slender woman of mixed Asian descent with an unfocused, genial smile, a taller woman with long, dark hair and a tank top to show off her well-toned arms, and a broad-shouldered man with unkempt shoulder-length red hair, camo-patterned pants, and a jacket that went down to his knees.

The Japanese man bowed. "Doctor Akito. I thank you for coming on such short notice, and only wish we could have met under better circumstances." He ushered the four foreigners through the door, then slid it shut and locked it behind them. "I have heard of your expertise in these matters -- I trust you will be able to deal with this situation quickly and quietly?"

"Discretion is our watchword, Doctor. If you could show us to the site of the most recent incident?"

"Ah, of course! Otoyo-sensei's office is -- was -- this way. Please, follow me, I will explain what we know on the way."

Behind Akito's back, the red-haired man whispered to the tall woman next to him. "Doctor Truitt? Why do you get to be a doctor and I only get to be a 'mister'?"

She elbowed him in the ribs, but said nothing.

"We've been experiencing problems with the electrical systems for about a month," said Akito, unable to hear what was going on behind him, "but the first fatality was a week and a half ago -- a student working overnight in one of the labs was found Friday morning, covered in what looked to be severe electrical burns. At first we thought it was some sort of power surge; much of the equipment was damaged as well --"

"--But the maintenance staff said the power surge came from a different machine in a different room entirely, right? One that had no signs of damage -- the cyclotron?"

"Ah, yes, that is correct, Akens-sensei. We were concerned, of course, but we examined the cyclotron and found nothing wrong with it. We hadn't really had a chance to progress much further when the second body was discovered, five days later. This time it was one of our custodial personnel, in the middle of a hallway, with a similar pattern of burns. Again, there was a power spike from the cyclotron. We shut it down, even though there was again nothing wrong with it --"

Akens interrupted again. "--But two days ago you went into Doctor Otoyo's office, saw the good doctor's remains, at which point you closed off the department and called us?"

"Ah, yes, correct. My assistant must have given you this information over the phone. This is... was Otoyo-sensei's office, and I have kept it locked since that day. I hope you can make something of it, I find it most disturbing."

Akito opened the door and winced at the sight within. Akens' eyebrow arched, Neary looked queasy, and Wheeler let out a slow whistle. The office was a shambles; papers and lab equipment lay strewn all over. The doctor's large oaken desk had been overturned and splintered in several places. Most notably, what appeared to be Dr. Otoyo hung upside-down from the ceiling, covered in electrical burns, his legs below the knee fused into the plaster above them with no visible means of entry.

"Doctor Akito, you've come to the right people."

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 1: DOUBLE VISION ∙ ∙ ∙

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO DEPT. OF HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS OFFICE OF OTOYO SHINICHIRO TOKYO, JAPAN WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 16, 1995, 4:08 PM

"I still don't see why we have to hang around in here. We got all the information we needed over the phone." William Wheeler picked one of those clicking-ball devices off the floor -- Newton's Cradle, that's what those things were called -- and started to play with it. "We could be out right now looking for this thing instead of wasting our time here."

"As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Bill on this one," said Donna Truitt, standing by the door. "We already know how this guy died and why, not like it had anything to do with what he was working on. And the dead guy hanging out of the ceiling is really starting to freak me out."

Philip Akens didn't look up from the stack of papers he was leafing through. "I know we're not doing anything, but we have to anyway. It's all about appearances, about keeping face."

Donna rolled her eyes. "Phil, with you everything is about keeping face."

He sighed, a 'why-Lord-must you-test-me-so' gesture. "Yes, okay, Doctor Akito is one of the few experts in his field who would actually give my theories on dark energy a second glance, so I would appreciate it if we could solve this problem in such a manner that we don't look like a pack of wild animals. Just this once, perhaps?"

Wheeler grunted. "I promise nothing."

Another sigh. "Anyway," Akens continued, "We give it another ten minutes or so in here, convince him we're touching all the bases. Then we can get down to the real business." He paused, flipping back and forth between a few pages. "No wonder he had to pull an allnighter, this guy had no control over his department. Labs cancelled, tests lost, professors missing, had to be a lot of work if he's doing the work of six or more professors by himself. Hell, he's got a Doctor Tomoe here who hasn't shown up in over two weeks -- that's two weeks worth of three classes a week, labs to run, papers to grade, equipment to schedule..."

"Vanished over two weeks ago?" asked Dr. Neary. "Didn't Akito say that the bodies have been turning up about every five days? Could be, the first victim they found wasn't the first victim it made."

"Exactly what I was thinking, Nadine," Akens said as he folded the papers in half to place in his pocket. "And here you thought we were wasting our time."

∙ ∙ ∙

After a thorough review of Dr. Tomoe's office in the physics department, the agents of the Hoffmann Institute came to the conclusion that he was indeed somehow involved in the summoning of the Fader. His office had no papers to grade and no pictures of his daughter anywhere, but what it did have were cursory notes on the summoning of extra-dimensional beings, probably ones he forgot to take with him when he cleared the incriminating material out of this office.

The agents suspect that he summoned a Fader, and they are right. The Fader is a creature not native to our reality but from a plane of mostly energy, who take the form of human bodies that were sent into its home plane of existence. Most, perhaps all of these bodies the Faders take, were left in their world after the disastrous failure of the US military's "Project Rainbow", also known as the Philadelphia Experiment, in which the Navy attempted to teleport the USS Eldridge from one location to another by passing it through the dimension the Faders come from. Many of the crew were killed, some of them phased through the walls and floors by the massive distortions of energy, and some of the crew that came out on the other side weren't really the crew at all.

Dr. Tomoe did summon such a creature, a being of warped, insane energy straddling between our world and theirs, but this was not his intention. Indeed, he's not even aware that it arrived in our world at all via the open portal he was using to test for the arrival of Pharaoh 90. The Fader simply saw a gate to our world, took it, and traveled toward the nearest source of energy it could find. Luckily for Dr. Tomoe and unluckily for us, he was not testing the gateway in his own backyard or the monster would have fed on the equipment in his basement; instead the closest source was the cyclotron at Tokyo University.

The Hoffmann agents do not have access to this information and do not yet know that the monster Tomoe is attempting to summon is much, much worse than any mere Fader. But they did learn some things, and by the time the sun was setting they figured they had enough time to check on his house, or the private school he was teaching at, but not both. They chose to search his house, and if they had not, they would have been witness to far stranger events.

Events like Ami, Minako, Usagi, Rei, and Makoto are witnessing right now, when the students of the Mugen Academy are walking in like a great shambling pack of zombies, faces clouded in unnatural shadow, to have their pure hearts sucked out from their chests to fuel the Messiah of Silence's power. The five Sailor Senshi are scared, they'd be foolish not to be, but they press on because they know they are the only ones who can stop this evil from coming to pass.

And they're right, but they're not the only ones who would try.

∙ ∙ ∙

Glancing from mirror to mirror and back again, Dr. Neary backed a Hertz rental van into the driveway of the missing doctor's rather impressive two-story home. Nobody expects any trouble -- they don't expect to meet anybody, as a matter of fact -- but she's learned the hard way to always, always park for a quick getaway.

"Akito said that Tomoe had a daughter," Akens said as Neary struggled to get the aging manual transmission into 'neutral' without snapping the gearshift off. "If he's vanished, and I bet he has, she may still be around. Wheeler, can you give us your friendly uncle act?"

"I don't know how well it will work if she can't speak any English, but I'll give 'er a shot." Wheeler heaved the sliding door on the side open, and it reached the end of its track with a muffled WHUMP. "Wish I brought a gun, though."

Truitt rolled her eyes in the seat next to him. "Yes, I'm sure his daughter would be so much more easily amused if you had a shooting iron to show her. I know I ask this a lot, Bill, but just what the hell is wrong with your brain?" Wheeler shot her a scowl set on 'vaporize'.

"Get a room, you two." Neary spun the keychain around her index finger a few times and then stuffed the keys into her pocket.

"All right, here we go." Akens slowly, deliberately pressed his thumb into the doorbell, greeted by a harsh buzz muffled through the front door. He waited a few moments, then held down the button for ten seconds solid. "Looks like nobody's home. Donna, could you--"

Truitt shoved him aside with a hand curled around a locksmith's pick set. "--Get the door? Why gee, I hadn't thought of that. It isn't like it's my job or anything." She knelt over and glanced at the doorknob, selected a pick from the fold-out set, and started to line it up with the keyhole before she stopped and just turned the doorknob. Met with no resistance, the front doors of the Tomoe residence swung open.

The lights were off, and Donna slapped her hand against the wall a few times before finding the lightswitches -- she flicked them back and forth, to no effect. "Lights probably burned out," Wheeler said from a distance that sounded like he was right in Donna's ear, likely because he was, and she instinctively spun around and took a few steps backward, nearly stepping on a table. "Car isn't in the driveway, though, so if he left them on he was expecting to be right back."

"Or maybe he was too busy thinking about quarks and bosons to remember to turn them off before he went to work. Whatever it is, we need to check around for anything indicating where he was going or if he was doing anything to attract outside attention. Probably best if we split up."

And at Dr. Neary's suggestion, they split up. They would remain split up for no more than twenty-five seconds, which is how long it took for Donna Truitt to go into the basement and find the lab. Once she did, it was pretty clear that nothing else in the house was going to matter.

∙

"Holy shit! It's like he's building a Goddamn Frankenstein down here!"

"Donna, that's absurd. I mean, Tomoe's field was physics, not biology, and, and none of these things look like... I mean, if this stuff has something to do with the Fader's appearance, that's still something that would require... it'd need a totally..."

Tubes and beakers filled with unidentifiable substances littered the several tables in the room. A mesh of copper wiring coated the walls and ceiling. The far wall was cluttered with machinery of various ages and applications. There was a Jacob's ladder, arcing electricity up its twin antenna to no apparent purpose, a Kenmore refridgerator, and a boxy device, painted with a star, that was either an autoclave that looked like an Easy-Bake oven, or an Easy-Bake oven that looked like an autoclave. A beige Hewlett-Packard was hooked up to most of the devices, its monitor displaying a series of multicolored tubes snaking around each other.

Donna didn't look away from the lab. "What? What would it require, Phil?"

Phil didn't look away either. "...It really looks like he's building a Goddamn Frankenstein down here."

Dr. Neary pushed them aside. "Well, whatever he was shooting for, we know what he got. We'd better get an inventory of what he had, maybe if we can figure out how he got the Fader over here, we can figure out how to kill it or drive it off."

They nodded in odd synchronicity and fanned out to begin looting the lab of anything that could either provide insight into the doctor's dimension-crossing ventures, or at least be sold. Dr. Akens moved to the computer and began to tap at the keyboard. A few moments later, Wheeler piped up.

"Try 'Hotaru'."

"Huh?"

"His daughter's name. It's probably the password."

Akens let out a long sigh. "There wasn't a password, it was just his screen saver. And that only ever works in the movies anyway."

Wheeler sniffed the contents of the flask he was holding and grimaced. "Oh, you mean the movies, like the ones where crazy mad scientists have labs in their basements with those little widgets that look like rabbit ears with bolts of lightning zapping up them?"

Akens would have greatly loved to have a withering put-down to respond to this, but damn if Bill wasn't right.

∙ ∙ ∙

Upstairs, a black magic woman breathes a sigh of relief as she sees the four strangers walking back out to the car, carrying Dr. Tomoe's computer and several components of the lab. She was afraid that they might be some as-yet-unknown allies of the Sailor Senshi, but luckily they were just there to rob the place. They left behind the daimon incubator, by far the most valuable piece of equipment, and nothing they did take didn't already have four or five backups at the Mugen site.

It took all her restraint to keep silent when she heard them come in, but she was pretty sure it was the right decision. If she killed them and anyone saw or heard it, then Chibi-Usa might be scared off and never come seeking her little friend. The doctor's personal computer wasn't important, but Hotaru's little playmate was vital. She was certain to have the purest heart of them all, and that's why Kaolinite sent her a dream about her friend, being torn asunder and screaming Chibi-Usa's name. She'd even thrown in some meaningless Christian symbolism and had Hotaru bound to the cross; that kind of stuff always got the kids riled up.

When Kaolinite captured the girl and secured her pure heart for the Pharaoh, it would be clear to all who was the greatest servant the Pharaoh had. And it would especially be clear to that bitch Cyprine, who was going to be demoted to rinsing out the centrifuge so fast it would make her head spin.

∙ ∙ ∙

"Okay, so we got the doc's research data. What now?"

"Well, there's a bunch of data on there about trying to bridge the way to a sub-dimension of our own, and bring something over that's been straddling between two planes. We know that the Faders are probably from outside our dimension, and they need enormous amounts of energy to maintain their existence, but nobody knows what would happen if one were to be brought all the way into our reality rather than existing halfway between here and there. As far as I know, nobody's ever tried before Dr. Tomoe. Problem is, I couldn't find any actual schematics on there, nothing about a device to actually accomplish it. I may be able to--"

"God DAMN it will you jackasses just let me TURN, or am I going to sithere with my blinker on until I die of old age?" Donna slammed the base of her palm on the steering wheel in frustration. "You don't get a prize for 'winning' at traffic, so it's okay if you let someone in front of you once in a while!" She paused. "I'm sorry, you were saying something that I wasn't at all interested in?"

Dr. Akens cleared his throat. "Erm, yes. Anyway, I know of someone back in Arizona who may be able to take the data and help us make something to disrupt the Fader and drive it back to its home dimension. If we can get in touch with him, we might be able to stop the creature's next feeding cycle."

"If? Well, what do you mean, if?"

"Yeah... apparently, when I last talked to him, his financial situation was less than optimal. His last few paychecks from the Institute had bounced, and he suggested he'd flip a coin to decide if he paid for his phone or his cable television. I think he was joking. I hope."

Donna slammed on the brakes and drove her hand into the horn like she was trying to tear through a human skull. "The light is GREEN you idiot! Does everyone cross against the light here in Bizarro-Land, or are you just retarded?"

The short, pink-haired girl that had nearly been flattened by the van looked up at her as if in a trance, her red eyes distant and troubled. "Yes, I am talking to you!" Donna continued. "Go! Move! Motivate! Vamanos!" She began making wide hand gestures to illustrate the point. "MOOOOOOOOVE IT!"

Nadine slapped her on the back of the hand. "Jesus, Donna, will you give it a rest? I think everyone's got the point by now that you're, ooh," she put her hands up near her head and wiggled her fingers a bit, "big scary lady with big important things nobody ever better cross!"

Donna gritted her teeth and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as the light turned red and the little girl snapped out of her momentary trance to continue off down the street. "Shut up, Nadine."

"Run off, little pink-haired girl," Nadine continued as if she hadn't heard, "Run off and tell all your friends of this day, the day that you met the mighty Donna Truitt, the mysterious stranger, the erotic assassin who can kill with a glance, and lived to tell the tale! Go! And warn the others of what may befall them if she is not afforded her proper respect!"

Donna blew a strand of hair out of her face. "I just... don't appreciate it when I've got the right of way and someone decides that their time is more important than mine. I don't think that's really all that unusual."A pause. The light turned green again and they continued on down the road. "And besides, if I did want her to go warn everyone, she could just make a sign and stick it in that hairdo of hers."

∙ ∙ ∙

Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity woke with a start, yelling Hotaru's name. She was panting, sweating, exhausted, and she had to take a moment to get her bearings and realize that she was awake now, she'd been having a nightmare. Hotaru was screaming her name as a thousand grasping hands dragged her down into the unfathomable darkness. She was nailed to a crucifix, for she was a Messiah, but hers was not an act of redemption. The Christians say the Messiah died to wash away the sins of man and grant them eternal life, but the Messiah of Silence would come to wash away the virtue and goodness of mankind and usher in utter annihilation.

Chibi-Usa took a moment to be grateful she wasn't a Christian and didn't have to follow that line of symbolism down to its conclusion.

She took a look around the room but Usagi and Mamoru were gone, and who knew when they'd be back. Chibi-Usa still couldn't believe that those two could ever grow up into her parents. Ikuko and Kenji, Usagi's parents, were probably still here, but what Chibi-Usa needed wasn't something that came from two people who are awakened at 11:30 at night by a kid who had a nightmare.

It was just a nightmare, after all. Sailor Mars was the one with visions of the future, not her. This wasn't any more a vision of the future than her dream last week where she and Black Lady were both contestants on "Takeshi's Castle" and Black Lady kept tripping on her dress and falling in the water. Still... it couldn't hurt to check. If Hotaru wasn't in trouble, then she'd feel a bit silly. If she was, Chibi-Usa might save her life. It was just a dream -- she hoped it was just a dream -- but she just needed to make sure.

She had already grabbed her compact, put on her shoes, and was halfway down the block by the time she made this conscious decision.

But it was only right, wasn't it, that Chibi-Usa do everything in her power to save Hotaru? Even if, Chibi-Usa shuddered, the powers of Sailor Chibi-Moon might not be able to do a whole lot to a forest of pallid white arms stretching out of the maw of the Abyss. Chibi-Usa was a princess, after all, and -- no. No, Chibi-Usa corrected herself, this had nothing to do with being a princess. She was Hotaru's friend and that's what mattered, and she'd be Hotaru's friend whether she were a princess or a pauper. She had to do everything she could to make sure Hotaru was safe and she was happy, because she knew Hotaru would do the same for her.

Everyone deserves to have friends, to have people that love and care about them, and if Hotaru only had one, then that just meant Chibi-Usa would have to be as kind to her as ten friends would. Hotaru was a sweet, kind girl, and someone like her should be cheerful, not sad. Hotaru always seemed sad before Chibi-Usa befriended her, and too often afterwards. They played, they laughed, they had fun, but sometimes Chibi-Usa got the impression that Hotaru's happiness wasn't replacing her sorrow, but just laying on top of it. Covering it up. She never talked about the past without regret, she always feared the worst would happen to her, and seemed a bit suprised whenever she was shown kindness. Always afraid, of being hurt, of being rejected, of failing, of herself.

Hotaru would never say these things out loud, of course, because she cared about Chibi-Usa's feelings and didn't want her to worry, so she just kept her bad feelings on the inside where she thought nobody could see them. It was tragic, thought Chibi-Usa, that if she could open herself up a little more to the world she'd find so many new reasons to be happy, but until she was happier she couldn't open herself up to the world.

That's what Chibi-Usa's job was. Not just to save her from being pulled into a physical darkness -- something that she still hoped was just a metaphor -- but to pull her out of an emotional darkness. If Chibi-Usa could be her ray of light and let her see things the way they really are, she knew Hotaru would be happy. And that would make her happy, too.

Chibi-Usa stopped when she heard a car horn, not so much startled as confused. She looked around and realized she was in the middle of the street, blocking the path of the van that was now honking at her. The driver was a dark-haired woman, American or European, and she was screaming loudly and animatedly in a language Chibi-Usa didn't understand. She looked at the woman, shouting and waving her arms, for a long and morose moment. She was so angry, impatient. She was probably unhappy too. Did this screaming woman have friends when she was young, people to show her the goodness of the world? Chibi-Usa didn't think so, and when she walked away from the van the thought of it almost made her cry. People deserve to be better than that. Hotaru deserves to be better than that.

When Chibi-Usa got to the house, she decided that for safety's sake it was best if she transformed into Sailor Chibi-Moon. She went to open the front door, but it opened to beckon her in...

∙ ∙ ∙

Daniel Banks, the engineer to which Dr. Akens had earlier referred, was not joking. But this time, his coin flip had resulted in another month of payment to the phone company; any deviations in this tangent ultimately can be attributed to the results of this coin flip. It is why all night and into the early morning of February 17th, 1995, as the dwindling remains of a cabal of sorcerers in the Mugen Academy for Gifted Students work the mechanism of Armageddon, as eight Senshi struggle to halt its great turning gears, four underpaid agents are sitting in a circle on the floor of the office of Dr. Mitsumo Akito, surrounded by various electronic parts and components, one of them alternating betweenlistening intently to the phone cradled between his ear and shoulder, tapping something into the keyboard of a beige Hewlett-Packard laying on the floor next to him, and shouting commands to a loose assortment of undergraduates to fetch for him the next part he will need. Four undergraduates are missing, not that anyone notices, and those would be the four of Dr. Akito's students that had taken part-time tutoring jobs at the downtown Mugen Academy. When morning came, the rest of the students found the entire building closed off by order of the department chair.

The long-distance bill alone from this night will be over one thousand American dollars, not to mention the costs of rescheduling a day's worth of classes. The Hoffmann Institute will never see an invoice for this, because every party involved is about to have much bigger problems.

Inside the Mugen Academy, Dr. Tomoe spoke softly, reverently, to his own daughter. "It is all ready now. Now we need only to put the chalice into the device, and the light of darkness will illuminate our world. That illumination is what is needed to show the way to our great Master Pharaoh Ninety. And when he arrives in our space, all will be destroyed and the Earth will fall into Silence. The era ruled by the light of lies will end and the era ruled by the darkness of truth will begin. "

She smiled, a dark smile that portended nothing but suffering and sorrow. Her master would have smiled too, had he mouth or form. He was in the same room as his mad servitor, and yet was an entire world away. But soon, his nightmare would end, and he would surge into the existence denied him thousands of years ago. Soon, he would enact his hellish retribution on the world that had been his prison.

The time of the Silent One was soon at hand.

∙ ∙ ∙

"So that's it?"

"That's it."

Wheeler picked up the device and gingerly turned it over in his hands, then placed it back on the table. "It looks like a hot dog rotisserie."

It did.

"It's a rotating magnetic resonance disruptor. It cycles magentic fields on a certain frequency, attuned to the dimension the Faders are from. If Dr. Tomoe's research was accurate, it'll force our Fader into one dimension or another."

"And what will that mean?"

Akens shrugged. "Depends. If it is more in its dimension at the time, it just gets driven back. It vanishes. If it's more in ours, it's forced all the way in, and it should be unable to teleport or make use of the energy it's been storing up."

Wheeler pulled the Colt Python out of his jacket and made a show of twirling it back and forth between his hands. "At which point, I put bullets into it until it falls down. I knew you guys kept me around for something."

"Don't get too trigger-happy. If we didn't get the frequency right, it could end up affecting a dimension the Fader isn't even in. Shoot it when it's at normal power and you'll just end up angering it."

"Phil, I don't know if you've noticed this, but generally when I shoot things they aren't happy about it." He slid the gun back into its holster, just so he could make a show of drawing it again. "So, I noddedoff at about four, what time did you guys end up going to bed?"

"Didn't. I drank about three pots of coffee, and plus the grad students give me like twenty boxes of those little candy pretzel stick things with chocolate on them."

"Pocky?"

"Oh no thanks, I'll just put on a jacket."

∙ ∙ ∙

Sailor Uranus, Sailor Pluto, and Sailor Neptune approached the Mugen Academy in a helicopter. The sky was grey and overcast, turning day into twilight. The weathermen at the channel from which the helicopter was stolen had predicted today would be sunny and clear, and for once this inaccuracy was not their fault. These clouds didn't foretell rain. They foretold death.

"We have no time left," said Sailor Uranus. "We have to strike before she completely awakens." Neptune looked straight ahead, but put her hand around Uranus's, for support. "So there was no Messiah after all... we have to save the world with our own hands." She started to choke up, though with anger or sorrow she could not tell. "No matter what sacrifice we may have to make..."

In the backseat, Pluto stared off to the side, in silent contemplation. Neptune and Uranus were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. So was she. But Usagi wasn't. No, Usagi had said "I won't let anyone be sacrificed," and she said it with the same conviction that they'd said they would die to stop the Silence. Neptune and Uranus think that means she's weak, naive, foolishly optimistic. That she'd be dead if not for cynical people like them willing to do ugly things so she can keep herself pretty.

Pluto can't help but wonder, though. Sailor Moon has already fought the Dark Kingdom and the Black Moon Clan without the help of the Outer Senshi and without sacrificing any of her friends. Is the Silence simply a different threat, one that can't be fought the way Sailor Moon is confortable with? Or would Neptune and Uranus have thought that the only way to defeat Queen Beryl was to sacrifice themselves and leave nobody to stop Wiseman? They say that Hotaru is the Messiah of Silence. Isn't the Messiah supposed to bear off the burdens of others, so they no longer need to make these sacrifices?

She thinks she should know the answers to these questions. She's the guardian of the Gates of Time. She should know what's going to happen. And she does, doesn't she? Small Lady is here from a thousand years in the future, and she certainly couldn't be born if all life on Earth was Silenced. And Pluto sent her here, so she knows she doesn't give her own life. And she could look into the Gates of Time to know exactly how it will happen, she's done that kind of thing before...

...and yet, for this, she hasn't. She doesn't know what happens here today because every single time she's tried to look, she's stopped herself at the last moment. She's not concerned about breaking rules, or about knowing too much about her own future... she's afraid. She's afraid she will open the Gates of Time and look inside to this day and she will see the Pharaoh tearing his way into our space and laying waste to all humanity. And she will try to call Small Lady and warn her but she will be dead, worse, she will never have been born. And she will turn and look around her and see fire and wreckage and know there is nothing she can do about it.

"What's that?" asked Uranus from the front of the cockpit, pointing at what appeared to be a dome of energy around the Mugen building.

"It doesn't look like a normal barrier," said Neptune.

"There's an opening on the top. Maybe we can get in through there." Uranus didn't mention that this was probably a trap, because they all knew that. And if the only way in was to walk into a trap, that's what they had to do. Because they were willing to sacrifice themselves, right?

Uranus pulled in closer to land and saw that it was indeed not a normal barrier, it was a barrier made of hundreds and hundreds of red, gelatinous daimons. They had been dormant until the helicopter as in range, and then a great mass of them attacked in unison, leaping at all parts of the aircraft. They were each weak and had no weapons to speak of but neither of that really mattered because they didn't have to attack the three Senshi, they had to attack the far more fragile aircraft they were riding in. Uranus tried to pull back, to get away, but there was no time to escape the daimons. They wrapped aroudn the craft like cords, pulling it in, breaking it to pieces, and showering it with dark energy. Sparks and smoke shot from the intrument panel, the rotors were jammed, the intakes were clogged, and the helicopter would have exploded before it even finished falling like a stone. What Pluto did next, she didn't even have time to think about, but after all the consideration in the world she would have done it anyway.

She was outside the helicopter now, hanging in midair, holding the Key with the Garnet Orb aloft. The helicopter, the daimons, everything around them were frozen in time. Pieces of shrapnel hung in the air as if supported by wires, clouds of smoke and flame froze and looked like wads of cotton, flares of blue electricity became blue paint.

"Pluto?" shouted Neptune, her voice echoing unnaturally.

"What have you done?" asked Uranus.

Pluto winced, feeling the tidal strain this was putting on her body. "I've stopped time!" she said. Her vision was starting to blur and different parts of her were being pulled in vastly different directions. "You've got a chance, now take it! You need to escape, now!"

"You never told us you had this kind of power!"

"I don't!" she said back, and already she tasted blood in her mouth. "For a Guardian of Time, this is absolutely forbidden."

"Absolutely forbidden?" asked Uranus, trying to understand.

"What's going to happen to you?" Neptune asked.

Pluto smiled and retained her composure even as she felt like she was being stretched on the 'rack' in a dimension she couldn't even see. "If you ever find the real Messiah..."

Neptune and Uranus vanished, teleported away into the building for the final confrontation. A second later, Pluto was gone too.

∙ ∙ ∙

"You're sure it's coming."

"Positive. It feeds like clockwork, every five days. According to the power usage logs, yhe feeding times get a few hours later each time, so it should be here around eight, eight-thirty. Unless it's moved on, and there's no reason for it to have done so, it'll be here this morning."

Dr. Otoyo's office was silent for a few moments.

"I'm bored."

"We're all bored, Bill. We're not all annoying."

More silence.

"Bill, animals of North America, seven letters."

"Nadine, we're supposed to be on a stakeout! We're making too much noise as it is already!"

Ten seconds of silence, unblinking, unmoving, as inviolate as the utter darkness they found themselves shrouded in.

"Gimme an 'E'."

"No 'E'. You've got the guy's head."

Truitt grabbed her temples and exhaled, slowly.

"Wait, you don't just start with the guy's head! You have to draw the gallows first."

"Bill. Nadine. Stakeout. Talking. Stop doing it."

"I never played it like that. You always start with the guy's head. Otherwise you'd get, like, twenty guesses!"

"Well, there's 26 letters in the English language, you can't just make me lose after six wr--"

Truitt jammed a hand over Wheeler's mouth and pointed a finger up in the air. He began to protest, but then he heard it too, the sound she was indicating. A low buzz, a hum, permeated by the occasional crackling. Quiet, but getting louder. The flourescent lights in the office started to flicker to life, even though they were turned off.

"Showtime." Akens grinned before ducking his head slightly out the doorway. "Wait for my signal, then activate the device."

He peered down into the hallway and spied a bluish glow coming down another hall toward the cyclotron room. In a few seconds, he saw its source: a man, or what appeared to be one, faintly luminescent, dressed exactly like a Naval crewman, of the USS Eldridge on October 28, 1943 -- though his plane of origin was nothing so mundane as that. It moved with a quick, determined gait toward the cyclotron.

Akens pointed toward the decice without looking away. "Hit it."

∙

"Sailor Moon! Are you satisfied now? Answer me!" There was no response, there could be none. Sailor Moon stared in mute shock at the end of the world coalescing before her. Sailor Uranus fell to her knees and wept.

Another voice, gentle yet strong. It was familiar and yet it was not. "Thank you, Sailor Moon. Thank you for protecting me. I am here, thanks to you."

"Hotaru!" the doctor called to his daughter.

"I am not Hotaru any more. I am now the only one who can save this world from the Silent One. Just leave the rest to me."

It didn't speak, for it couldn't. It emanated forth its hatred directly, and its thoughts touched the minds of all in the room like being splashed with cold, black oil.

YOU FOOLISH CHILD. I AM OLDER THAN THE PLANETS FROM WHENCE YOU TAKE YOUR NAME AND I WAS ANCIENT WHEN THE FRAAL FOSTERED THE LUNAR KINGDOM FROM WHENCE YOU DRAW POWER. WHEN FIRST THEY ARRIVED ON THIS WORLD, I WAS HERE, WAITING TO CONSUME THEM. THEY DESTROYED THOUSANDS OF THEIR OWN AND STILL COULD NOT STOP ME. WHAT CAN ONE MORTAL HUMAN CHILD EVER HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH?

Sailor Saturn gritted her teeth and stood resolute.

I HAVE BEEN CALLED COUNTLESS NAMES IN THE LIFE OF YOUR PLANET. YOUR FATHER CALLED ME PHARAOH. THE FRAAL CALLED ME THE SILENT ONE, ISCI BA FAN. I HAVE CARED LITTLE FOR THE TITLES GIVEN BY MORTALS. BUT NOW, I SHALL REVEAL MY IDENTITY TO YOUR SPECIES.

MY NAME IS DEATH.

∙

The device that looked remarkably like a hot dog rotisserie spun slowly, emitting a light squeak every quarter-turn.

"What's happening? Let me see!" Truitt and Wheeler both moved toward the doorway. Wheeler shoved her aside and peeked his head around the doorway, just under the head of Dr. Akens. He saw a bluish, luminescent man in outdated clothing walking up the hallway, in no visible distress.

"Phil. It's not working."

"I am acutely aware of the fact that it's not working, William!"

"I think we've found a problem in the plan, the plan requires your thing to be working!"

The Fader stopped next to the locked door to the cyclotron, and arcs of blue-white lightning began leaping through it, into his body. The flourescent lights all over the hallway began flaring and sparking. Behind them, they heard a muffled voice say, "I am the only one who can save this world from the Silent One. Just leave the rest to me."

Truitt and Neary turned to each other and said, in unison, "Did you just say something?"

∙

Nacreous black tendrils lashed out at Sailor Saturn, each parried with a brilliant strike of her blade. The gateway was a pulsing sphere of dark energy, slowly growing wider. The Pharaoh struck at her with these black tentacles, but these were just his fingertips. The aperture was not yet wide enough to allow his real form entry into the world, and when it was, not even the Senshi of Ruin would be able to stop him.

Sailor Saturn struck, slashed, parried with her Silence Glaive at dizzying speed. The weapon was almost weightless, incredibly easy to wield and control. Though it weighed no more than gossamer, the blade was rigid, unbreakable, and the edge sharp enough to cut anything with the slightest pressure. She twirled and swept around with it, stopping attacks that were coming at her almost too fast to see, hacking off little chunks of tentacle that evaporated into black mist before they hit the ground. She was, in truth, actually a bit suprised at how skilled she was with this weapon; she was thankful that it was Sailor Saturn whom the fate of the world rested on, because Tomoe Hotaru would have failed everyone by now.

Sailor Moon howled in frustration and despair, throwing herself uselessly against a barrier of dark energy. The Chalice was gone, she no longer had the power to break down the wall. She had vowed nobody would be sacrificed, and she was going to be tragically, horrifyingly wrong unless she somehow found the strength the Chalice would have lent her.

USELESS. FOOLISH. ALL YOU HAVE DONE WILL DELAY MY RETURN BY A SCANT FEW SECONDS. I THINK THAT IN RETURN, I SHALL PEEL YOUR MIND FROM ITS MORTAL SHELL. I WILL USE YOUR PSYCHE AS THE CHALICE FROM WHICH I DRINK YOUR EXQUISITE SUFFERING.

Sailor Saturn scowled. Sailor Moon screamed the magic words again and again, but nothing happened.

Then behind her, she distinctly heard someone say, "I am acutely aware of the fact that it's not working, William!"

Then another voice, "I think we've found a problem in the plan, the plan requires your thing to be working!"

Sailor Saturn and the Pharaoh, locked in mortal combat, heard nothing but the sound of blades striking.

∙

"Okay. Okay. Stay calm. It doesn't see us. We just let it feed and let it leave."

This time, everyone heard it, though only Dr. Akens and Dr. Neary could understand the Japanese in which it was spoken. "Moon crisis make up!" howled a disembodied voice, "Moon Crisis Make Up! MOON CRISIS MAKE UP!" with each repetition becoming more desperate and hoarse.

The Fader stopped and turned toward the source of the noise, and saw the heads of Wheeler and Akens poking from the doorway. It emitted a crackle that could have been its species' equivalent of a snarl and began to walk toward them.

Akens ran his fingers into his hair and held them there. "It must, it must be picking up radio signals or something--"

"Okay, time for plan B!" Wheeler pushed Akens back, then ducked into the doorway himself for just long enough to draw his Colt Python revolver, and then leaned back out, exposing only his face and weapon arm. He fired six times in quick succession, emptying the cylinder into the advancing creature. It flinched slightly at the first hit, but the rest seemed to pass right through.

"Will, what did I say about pissing it off? You didn't listen to me, why does no-one LISTEN to me!" Panic was rising audibly in Akens' voice.

"Well if you have any other bright ideas, I'm all ears!"

"I, I don't know! The device was on his frequency, it should have--"

"That's it! The DEVICE!" William shouted in a moment of revalation, and yanked the device away from its wall socket.

Donna realized what he was doing and dove to stop him, but was too slow, and she only got as far as "What are you doing you id--" before Wheeler threw the rotating magnetic resonance disruptor at the creature's head.

∙

"I am known as the Soldier of Destruction because I have been given the power to destroy whole worlds. But when I use that power... even I have no escape."

"No!" cried Sailor Moon, and she ran toward her ally, her friend, in the hopes she could stop her from sacrificing her own life. Sailor Saturn pointed the glaive at her, and she stopped short. The blade was so sharp she thought it could cut space itself.

"Goodbye." Sailor Saturn took a deep breath, to steel herself for what she knew must be done, in anticipation of the fate for which she'd secretly hoped. She was scared, terrified and yet for the first time in a great while she felt content. Maybe even happy.

And then she heard someone scream "What are you doing you id--".

And then everything exploded.

∙ ∙ ∙

Dr. Neary was suprised that such a flashy, catastrophic explosion would be utterly silent. Then after a second she realized that it had completely deafened her. She pushed a chunk of burnt acoustical tile off herself and slowly rose to her feet to inspect the damage. The spot where the fader had stood was now a radial scorch mark; there was no sign of the creature or the device remaining. The wall that previously obscured her vision of that spot had been blown to bits, as had several other walls around the hallway, the cyclotron itself, and a large part of the ceiling. She turned around to see which of her teammates would need medical attention, and saw something unexpected.

Lying next to her, unconscious, in the middle of a pile of debris that seemed to indicate she'd been thrown bodily into the wall behind her, was a small, frail little Japanese girl. Her plain black shirt was tattered, revealing all manner of cuts and abrasions underneath, blood was oozing down her face, and both her hands were locked in a death-grip on a long, wicked polearm that still held a perfect mirror sheen even as everything around it was coated in a film of plaster dust.

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

HOFFMANN INSTITUTE AGENT NUMBER S-0014405 NAME: WHEELER, WILLIAM SCOTT

AGE: 28 PREV. ASSOCIATION: US Army (Governmental, Military), New Patriot Church of Liberty (Civilian, Military)  
ASSIGNMENT: Investigation & Response Team Rho

HISTORY: William Wheeler joined the US Army directly after his graduation from high school in Moscow, Idaho. He served a four year tour of duty, three months of which was combat duty as part of UN peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, and declined to re-enlist. Upon his return home he found that his father's farm had been siezed by the IRS for nonpayment of taxes, and this caused William to believe the government was out to harm its citizens. He joined a fringe militia group called the "New Patriot Church of Liberty", and stockpiled weapons as he preached to his neighbors about the imminent peril the government had placed them in.

Mr. Wheeler joined the Institute after being involved in an October 1992 incident that concerned the summoning of an ice-demon at a rural Idaho truck stop, where he was distributing antigovernment leaflets.

PSYCHOLOGY: William hates and mistrusts government of all types, but that is not what drives him. William needs to help people, to protect them from harm and wrongdoing, and unlike his teammate Donna Truitt he is not covert about this need -- he craves recognition for it. While a lofty and noble goal, it is marred somewhat by William's tendency to act well in advance of thought, misidentifying factors such as who needs "protection" in the first place, and from whom, and what exactly the best course of action to "protect" them would be. William is a very competent grunt-level field agent when he has others around to rein in his impulsive behavior.

William exhibits a fascination with firearms of all types that in any other occupation would be disturbing and unhealthy but here may be the most sensible habit of any of his teammates. When informed that, of the many conspiracies existing within the US government, the IRS was exactly as it claimed to be and had no plans to spirit away tax dissenters in the night or to sell citizens' true names to foreign banks, he was actually a bit disappointed.

SPECIES: Human PROFESSION: Combat Spec ACHIEVMENT LEVEL: 5

STR 11 [+1 INT 09 [+0  
DEX 11 [+1 WIL 08 [+1  
CON 12 PER 09

Second Sight [4: After an aggravating fiasco in Spokane, Washington involving a warlock making heavy use of 'glamours', William has been trained in the ability to see through illusions. He recieves a -1 step bonus on any skill roll to pierce an illusion, and is always entitled to a WIL feat check to pierce illusion even if the skill normally allows none. Willpower [4: What William lacks in good sense he makes up in gumption. He adds +1 to his WIL resistance modifier.  
Criminal Record [+4: William has a record on file with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and if he is seen or leaves evidence of his committing crimes in the United States the ATF may take an interest.  
Rebellious [+2: William does not trust government or police officials in any capacity and recieves a +2 step penalty to any PER-based skill checks involving governmental agents. He has no problem with authority figures that are not associated with the government, or pretending to be one himself, he has even posed as an FBI agent using a novelty badge purchased at a Spencer Gifts.

Combat Information:  
Weapon: Score: Range: Damage (O/G/A): Type:  
Unarmed 12/6/3 Personal d4+1s/d4+2s/d4+3s LI/O .357 Revolver 13/6/3 6/12/50 d4+1w/d4+2w/d4+1m HI/O Mosin-Nagant 14/7/3 -2 200/400/800 d6+1w/2d4+1w/d4+1m HI/O M16 14/7/3 -1 60/120/300 d4+2w/d6+3w/d4+1m HI/O RPG-7 12/6/3 +1 30/60/150 d6w/d4+3w/d4m En/G

Action Check: 14+/13/6/3 Durability: 12 / 12 / 06 / 06 Actions Per Round: 2 Last Resort Points: 1

Athletics [11/5/2  
Climb 1 [12/6/3  
Throw 1 [12/6/3  
Heavy Weapons [11/5/2  
Direct Fire 1 [12/6/3  
Unarmed Attack [11/5/2  
Brawl 1 [12/6/3  
Modern Ranged Weapons [11/5/2  
Pistol 2 [13/6/3  
Rifle 3 [14/7/3 -1  
Vehicle Operation [11/5/2  
Stamina [12/6/3  
Endurance 1 [13/6/3  
Survival [12/6/3  
Mountain 1 [13/6/3  
Winter 1 [13/6/3  
Knowledge [09/4/2  
First Aid 1 [10/5/2  
Language (Russian) 3 Awareness [08/4/2  
Intuition 1 [09/4/2  
Investigate [08/4/2  
Deception [09/4/2  
Interaction [09/4/2  
Intimidate 1 [10/5/2 


	2. Double Indemnity

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

The ambluance speeds down the streets of Tokyo, the blaring of its alarm nearly hoarse with panic. The driver's eyes are locked on the road, the cars she darts in and out of, letting nothing distract her.

Two gurneys are in the back of the ambulance, holding the two most wounded victims of the incident at the University of Tokyo. The eyes of the EMT back with them nervously flicker between the patients and the screens that show their vital data, wishing there was more he could do for them. The eyes of the two girls on the gurneys, the purple eyes of the short and frail one and the blue eyes of the blonde with the odangos, are blank and stare at nothing.

The woman sitting next to him, the one with the bandages hastily wrapped around her head and arm, looks occasionally at the two girls, but has more faith than the EMT that they will be all right. Her eyes keep drifting back to her companion, boring into him with twin laser beams of pure contempt.

And the eyes of her companion, the red-headed American man in the camouflage-pattern pants, scrunched up against the wall like Spider-Man sitting on the side of a building, find the roof of the car to be the most interesting thing to engage them.

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 2: DOUBLE INDEMNITY ∙ ∙ ∙

AMBULANCE 281 EN ROUTE TO JUUBAN GENERAL HOSPITAL TOKYO, JAPAN THURSDAY FEBRUARY 18, 1995, 9:38 AM

"You are a real Goddamned piece of work, Bill." Dr. Neary's voice was still a bit loud and toneless, a ringing noise still making its circuits through her ears.

"Hey, it got rid of the Fader, didn't it? I didn't see any of you coming up with any bright ideas." He stopped, thought, adding something that clearly did not take part in his decision-making process. "And besides, it's not like I knew it would turn him into a bomb, or whatever the hell it did. All I knew was what you all told me, that it sent it to a dimensional hoojamawhatever, maybe it just needed to be closer!"

Nadine put her hands to her temples; she wanted to do this in response to the ringing and head pains for a while but waited until she could make the action an insult to Bill as well. She winced when she put pressure on the left hand but passed that off as all part of the same disdainful response. "Yeah, Bill. Because that's what complicated pieces of interdimensional machinery do: they work great when you wing them at people's heads. Especially interdimensional people who would have otherwise left us alone and let us wait another five days to fix whatever was wrong with the machine."

"Then it could have gone on and hurt other people, or found a new power source and eluded us. Scoff all you want, I did what I had to."

"Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, after you blow up the machine and the Fader and the physics department and summon a little girl out of outer space or something, you follow it up by trying to carjack an ambulance -- and to get it to go where it was already going!"

Wheeler threw out his arms in an 'oh, now what do you want from me' gesture, then fumbled to keep the IV stand he'd accidentally smacked from tipping. "I didn't try to carjack anything! I knew we didn't have a name for space-girl here and we'd lose her if we got separated, so Itold the driver I was a federal agent and she was in my custody -- I mean, it's a lame story, but I was in a hurry."

"Oh, it's a real lame story Bill, and it gets even lamer when you're screaming it in a completely different language. You have a foot and a half and at least a hundred and thirty pounds on her, you're shouting gibberish she doesn't understand and us English-speakers find suspect, you're shoving a badge that actually says 'Federal Bikini Inspector' in her face, she thought you were a crazy man! I bet she still thinks whatever happened to space-girl, you did yourself."

Bill couldn't think of a response to that, plus the EMT was becoming noticeably agitated, so they were silent for a while, just looking at the little girl, inexplicably serene even with a tube of oxygen in her mouth and a tube of blood in her arm.

"So... what do you think happened to her?" Bill finally said. Nadine just scoffed and rolled her eyes.

Then she paused and said, "I have absolutely no Goddamned idea."

∙ ∙ ∙

Kaiou Michiru was brought back to life by her lover's touch.

Kaiou Michiru was brought back to life in a cold, dark parking garage, the rough concrete digging into her back, by her lover pounding her chest like she was trying to beat a railroad tie into place with her bare fists.

Michiru gasped, tried to speak, nothing came out. Haruka just held her, whispering "thank you". They were wearing clothing that Michiru almost didn't recognize, then it hit her that it was what they were wearing before their most recent Sailor Transformations, what seemed like ten lifetimes ago. They were far more tattered and bloody than the last time she saw them.

After a few ragged gulps of air, Michiru finally choked out "What... what happened? Where are we?"

Haruka looked around as if she hoped it would make her surroundings make more sense. "I think we're in a garage somewhere else in Japan. Hopefully we're still in Tokyo. We must have been teleported away when..."

"When what?"

Haruka shook her head. "I don't know. Something happened, I don't think it was supposed to. There were two ways this was going to end... I doubt either of them was an explosion followed by us teleporting to random safety."

"The Pharaoh can't have won... we're still alive. I guess this means Usagi was right." Michiru bowed her head slightly, ashamed of herself.

"No, I don't think so either. That fight didn't look like it was over, and then who warped us out, and why haven't they talked to us? Why here and not with the rest of the Inners? Why explode at all?"

"So then what's the third option?"

Haruka bit her lip. "I don't know yet."

∙ ∙ ∙

Donna Truitt chewed her lip nervously, waiting for news. All around her doctors rushed back and forth, speaking with an urgency that barely encroached on panic. The accident at the university hadn't been too severe, the hardest hit had been the four of them, plus the Space Girl, plus the blonde who must have been hit by a piece of debris outside, and even then the four of them had some bruises and scrapes but were mostly okay. Apparently, that hadn't been the main event -- there was another explosion, larger by orders of magnitude, at the same time at some prep school on the other side of the district. Even though it had been before classes even started, the school had been for some reason packed with students, and now the hospital was packed with students.

Donna cared about them in the abstract, distant way one cares for people one has never met but has no reason to wish ill on, but the 'Space Girl' was different. If she was just another strange phenomena to be observed, reported on, and tucked into a file somewhere, Donna could have at least sat down and pretended to read a magazine while she waited. Instead she paced back and forth and chewed her lip.

She didn't know why she was so worried. Well, no, that was a complete lie. She knew exactly why she was so worried, she just kept telling herself it was unusual and unexpected to keep her own self-image as the jaded, disaffected ice queen. The other people they were wheeling about were teenagers or older, easier to file their maladies under the heading of "shit just happens". Space-girl was just a kid, and a small, frail one at that. Shit happens to adults. Shit shouldn't happen to kids, because kids need to have someone to protect them. Plus, while the explosion crosstown was probably their fault -- simultaneous events like that are rarely coincidence -- a girl from outer space or who-knows-where showing up in the rubble of the explosion they caused was pretty explicitly their fault.

By "their fault" she meant "Bill's fault", of course.

She'd been holding onto a weapon like it was her life preserver, a sharp and lethal life preserver. A polearm, maybe a halberd. But her grip was weak and when they loaded her on the makeshift litter they made to get her out of the rubble, it had fallen out of her grasp and vanished before their eyes. They didn't know what the hell was up with that, but they didn't have time to care. They'd sort it out later, when the girl came to. If she came to.

When she came to.

Donna hadn't noticed Nadine coming in and jumped when she felt a tap on her shoulder, but she quickly regained composure when she saw who it was. "Well? Any news?"

Nadine nodded in the direction of the ER, a paper cap still on her head and surgical mask hanging down around her neck. Her left wrist was bound up in a brace that she may well have applied to herself. "They say her condition's stabilized, and she probably won't need more surgery. They've patched up her wounds as best they can and replaced the blood she lost, but she's breathing on her own now and the doctors believe she'll regain consciousness soon. They're taking her down for some more X-rays now, there may be some foreign objects that found their way deep enough in the skin that they don't wanna poke around for it, but for us all there is to do is wait."

"Any idea who she is?"

Nadine shook her head. "No ID on her. All they found in her pockets was a hundred and fifty yen and this weird pen." Nadine held it up, it was fat and bright and gaudy and atop it was a black sphere intersected by a purple disc. "They gave it to me because, apparently, we're FBI agents and she's in our custody."

Donna paused. "I think I've seen that pen before..."

∙

Kaiou Michiru doesn't normally make a habit of jaywalking, and in fact considers it an embarassing, if minor, oversight. But what with her trying and failing to prevent the arrival of the Messiah of Silence, having a front-row seat to the end of all life on Earth, then being whisked away without any explanation or resolution, almost dying behind a Nissan Stanza, and trying to figure out why the transformation pen in her hands had stopped working, she didn't have a lot of mental energy left over to dedicate to crosswalks or traffic safety. When she saw the headlights she stopped, not out of panic or terror but because she was trying to remember what the hell this thing was and why it was here.

It was a van, dark in color, probably American-made. In the passenger's seat was a black man holding his hands over his ears and wincing, in the driver's seat a dark-haired white woman screaming obscenities in English and beating on the car's horn like it had murdered her family. Both of them were bloodied, bruised and beaten, and Michiru swore she recognized the woman, but from what?

Haruka grabbed Michiru by the shoulder and yanked her out of the car's path, at which point the woman shouted "THANK you!" and the tires squealed as she tore off. Michiru blinked, shook her head, and wondered if she had a concussion.

"Who was that? I know her from somewhere, I couldn't quite place her face..."

Haruka grimaced. "I've never seen her face before. But I think that right before the explosion, she called Sailor Saturn an idiot."

"So, what does that mean?"

Haruka winced. "I'm not sure any of this means anything."

∙

"...but it's probably nothing, a couple people I saw on the way over had them. Probably some kind of promotion or something."

Nadine narrowed her eyes. "And by 'saw', I take it you mean 'almost ran over'?"

Donna didn't bother to ask how Nadine knew -- she drove so fast the only way she'd see anyone is if they were directly in front of her, blocking her path. "It's not my fault nobody here knows what a crosswalk is."

Nadine rolled her eyes. "And it's not their fault that you think the slightest traffic obstruction is an insult to your worth as a human being. Anyway, you seen Bill and Phil around?"

"Phil was bitching about a concussion and using way too many big words for me to believe he had one, Bill took him downstairs to get checked out so he'd stop complaining."

"Well, if you see those two, tell them I'm going to have them page 'Dr. Hoffman' to whereever they end up putting the space-girl when she's out of X-ray." She pulled the surgical mask back over her mouth. "It might take a while, there's a bit of a line. Anyway, I'm going down to triage to lend a hand, Hippocratic Oath and all that."

"They let you operate with your hand all messed up?"

She pulled her mask back down. "They wouldn't let me operate period, I'm probably going to end up treating the non-critically injured just enough so they don't riot, and another doc will probably take over everything halfway through so I don't screw it up. Still, it's good to help out, even if the downtown explosion wasn't actually our fault."

Donna tilted her head and paused a moment. "It wasn't?"

"You didn't hear? Apparently that whole place collapsed like three minutes before our little fiasco. You can take that off your conscience. Now if you will excuse me, the people are in need..." She pulled the mask back on and sauntered on down to the hospital's cafeteria where the patients were being held.

∙ ∙ ∙

Kino Matoko had a great deal of problems. In fact she had more now than when she thought all life on Earth was in imminent danger of being Silenced, and the bare fact she even thought that was another problem for her list.

She ran over the sequence of events in her head again. They'd made it to the Mugen academy before the ritual was completed. They'd been attacked by what looked like a mob of uncooked daimons, which they had managed to hold at bay long enough for Sailor Moon to make it inside, because Sailor Moon was always the only one who could do anything. The other four of them were trying to contain the power field emanating from the building from expanding any further, hoping to buy Sailor Moon enough time to stop the arrival of the dread Pharaoh 90. And then, of course,the field has broken and they were drawn up in the air to witness the arrival of the Silence firsthand. Mistress Nine's hold on her body weakened because she had underestimated the power of human love, and it looked like it wasn't going to matter. The building collapsed, the second time in 24 hours, and the hellish energy of the Pharaoh was taking the whole block with it. Sailor Uranus was berating Sailor Moon for being too trusting, and at the precise second when it appeared all hope was lost, a glowing, translucent Sailor Saturn had appeared to sacrifice her life to save all of theirs.

Matoko had participated in this kind of activity at least three times in the past, two of which she could remember, and so far this was all pretty standard stuff.

Then the portal through which the Pharaoh was entering exploded -- it didn't suddenly expand, didn't turn its evil black light white as Sailor Moon's love purified it, didn't even "explode with magic" -- it blew up, an Earth-shattering CHA-THOOM that left her ears ringing and her lungs gasping for air. Mugen had already collapsed twice before, but each time it was like it was condensing itself, casting off all unnecessary pieces to prepare for the final showdown. And now, the building had decided that its components no longer amused it and flung them away. Sailor Saturn was talking when it went up, so it didn't seem like she had expected this, or that this was the ultimate fatal power she was going to have to use. And there wasn't a Pharaoh running around, so it obviously wasn't the explosion created when he arrived in our world.

Maybe whatever kind of alien being the Pharaoh 90 is exploded when it came into contact with Earth's atmosphere, but Matoko thought that was unlikely. That seemed like the kind of thing you'd do some reasearch on before you started your summoning cult.

But, okay, the great evil exploded before the fight was over. That's unusual. Then Matoko recalled the feeling of being yanked toward the dead center of the explosion and caught a glimpse of Sailor Uranus being thrown toward the same point, and when she hit the center through which the Pharaoh had been arriving less than a second ago, she blacked out. And that wouldn't have been that unusual if she had woke up in the Tau cluster or wherever the Pharaoh had been from, because then it would have just been that he was drawing them into his world for whatever reason entities like him do things. Instead she awakened in midair with the same forward momentum she'd entered the "space" with, and juging by the number of things flying around and what direction, she'd traveled at most twenty-five meters and done so in half a second -- her loss of consciousness no longer than an eyeblink. She hit the asphalt and heard a snap like a stick of celery, it was her left leg. She skipped like a stone looking above her for just enough time to see Minako trace a graceful arc through the air, her blonde hair splayed about behind her like a sweat-soaked and dust-caked comet's tail.

Then she hit the street again, lucky enough to lead with her shoulder rather than her legs this time. She skidded a couple meters, the uneven street surface shredding the back of her shirt and abrading her skin, then came to a stop when the friction of her flesh on the street overcame the momentum of the explosion. It hurt, and it hurt a great deal, but by this point she had the same kind of detached awareness of her pain that she might have for the fact that it was raining in Osaka; something that was true but she didn't really care about. She noted that she was now wearing her civilian clothes, she guessed she might have reverted when she blacked out. She tried transforming back, if for no other reason than to see if the magic of the Moon Kingdom would heal her leg, but she knew it wouldn't work before she'd even finished the word "Jupiter". It was like whatever small intangible point she was reaching toward to call her powers, the one that was a part of her but could only be reached if you approached it from exactly the right angle, was gone.

She didn't have too long to wonder why that might be before she heard sirens, and that was the surest indicator she had that something had gone wrong. A day ago, this building had collapsed and no rescue teams were dispatched, no police arrived to cordon off the area. Half an hour ago, they had been holding back a wave of liquid malevolence in a glowing energy shield, and traffic was still flowing behind Matoko and nobody'd seen anything the slightest bit unusual. Now the damn place blows up and paramedics are on the scene inside of two minutes, loading people in Mugen uniforms onto gurneys. She wondered if the same effect that prevented people from recognizing her face as Sailor Jupiter also prevented them from recognizing a force-bubble full of daimons as something they should be concerned about, and if it went away with the rest of her powers.

They loaded her into an ambulance because she couldn't walk, she saw Ami and Minako getting onto a school bus they'd brought over to carry the wounded. None of them put up too much of a fight -- what the hell were they going to do? Not like they could run anywhere or fight them off, and it didn't seem like there were any more daimons climbing out of that hole. So they'd been taken to the hospital, run through triage -- Rei apparently needed immediate treatment, but the rest of them were sent off to wait in the hospital cafeteria with the rest of the non- critically injured victims until the doctors had taken care of those most in need of medical care. There were a couple of doctors here, the ones who can't work in the ER she guessed, changing bandages and setting bones and doing all that non-critical stuff. One of them was Ami's mother but luckily she seemed to be staying on the other end of the cafeteria, the doctor who bandaged up the abrasions on Matoko's back was some random doctor, someone in a surgical mask and what looked like a hastily-applied wrist brace on her own arm. It took longer to apply the dressings with only one good hand, but that's still better than having Dr. Mizuno over and possibly putting two and two together now that their magic identity protection was gone.

Minako, Matoko and Ami had all found each other but Rei was in surgery and Usagi nowhere to be found, not to mention Hotaru and Michiru and Haruka. Ami tried to track them with the Mercury Computer, but found that it had gone from a pocket space-age hypercomputer to an ordinary "Wizard" day-planner. Now would be the time when they huddled together to form a plan or hash out just what had happened, but none of them had anything to go on.

∙ ∙ ∙

Dr. Nadine Neary was grinning and bouncing slightly from one heel to the other, a manila envelope in her good hand, at the foot of the hospital bed that now held the one they referred to as "space-girl". Donna and Bill were in there, seated, waiting for Philip to show up because Nadine, quote, "wanted to tell everyone at once". Phil finally opened the door, grumbling under his breath, the top of his head covered in cotton bandages. They were four or five layers thick, almost as if someone had decided to mummify him from the head down, then got bored and stopped once he got to the forehead. More likely this was some unfortunate Japanese doctor or nurse or resident's way of appearing to treat Phil's imaginary ailment just so he'd go away and stop complaining.

"So what's with the private room, Nadine? I thought they didn't have the space to give them to non-critical patients"

"Well, apparently the explosion -- the one we didn't cause -- wasn't as bad as they first thought, not as many people in the area as they feared. And the one we did cause affected fifteen people, eight of which could be treated on scene, four of which are us," At this point Bill raised his right hand, his pinky and ring fingers held in metal sheaths and wrapped with tape, and Donna held out her arm to show off the bandages on it, both of them waved like they were in a crowd shot on "The Today Show".

"So as you can see we're pretty much fine. Then there was a custodian in the basement, he broke his foot and his coccyx. There was the blonde girl outside the building, Jane Doe Number 2, she took a hit from some glass that had her bleeding pretty bad but now she's all sutured up and in stable condition. And then," she gestured to the bed behind her with a dramatic flourish, "There is Space-Girl, Jane Doe Number 1, who has been placed into a private room so that the FBI can better monitor her." Bill bowed -- as much as you can when already seated, anyway -- and made a "hold your applause" gesture, which the rest of them were already adhering to before he even made it. "So, would anyone like to guess why she's in FBI custody?"

Donna blinked a few times. "Because... we told them she was, and she warped in out of nowhere with a magical disappearing halberd?"

Nadine waved her hands, then winced when she twisted her wrist the wrong way. "No, no, no. Something that the doctors here know about that'd have them put her in our custody without a lot of fussing. Something that I have in this envelope. Anyone else?" Her gaze flitted from Bill to Donna to Phil and back again, who all stared at her impassivley.

"All right, fine, can't even indulge me a little... Well, there's no broken bones and only very minor internal bleeding, so she's lucky there. She's bruised several of her ribs, but nothing too serious, keep an ice pack on it for a few hours a day and she'll be fine. And her respiratory system doesn't appear to be working very well, but that's not something caused by the accident. No, the real main event is, that Space-Girl, Jane Doe Number 1, is..." She stretched out the last "is" like it was the most satisfying taffy ever made.

"Just say it already!" the other three said in unison.

"...A cyborg!" she triumphantly revealed, and let three black plastic X-Ray prints fall out of the manila envelope onto the table at the foot of the bed. Bill, Donna, and Phil each grabbed one, held it above their heads right below a light, and squinted.

"So, what," Donna inquired as she still scoured the image looking for something that looked like a cybernetic implant... or a bone, she was Godawful at reading X-Rays, "are you saying we've got a baby Sandman on our hands?"

"She is NOT a Sandman!" Nadine crowed with satisfaction. "Because first off, she's unconscious and her body hasn't dissolved into a pile of sand, which is why we call them 'Sand'men. And second, Sandmen are damn near made of cybernetics from what we can tell, and Space-Girl is not. She's only got a couple implants -- left arm, both legs, and the left side of her abdomen -- and they're not very big, either. You see that?" She tapped on a part of the X-ray Donna was holding that looked like any other part, a mush of black and white and grey. "See that metal hunk inside the bone? That's not debris, there's no entry wound. No, that piece of metal was there so long that the bone grew around it. But that's not what makes it a cybernetic implant -- you see this?"

Her finger moved up and down the X-Ray along some path of grey lines Donna couldn't distinguish from any other path of grey lines. "Yes, I do," she said in a way she hoped could be later written off as sarcasm.

"These are muscle wires, they're wires used for robotics that contract when you run a current through them, emulating the contractions of a human muscle. Now these ones are actually mixed in with her muscle tissue, underneath it! They don't go up the whole length of the arm, but they do go for the length of that piece of metal in her bone, and a couple of them are still connected to it!" Donna looked around to see if this discovery excited anyone as much as it did her, and it did not.

Bill raised his hand, a habit he couldn't shake off when he felt like he was being lectured to "Okay, so, if they're so small, and they do so little, what's the point of even having them there?"

"Don't you get it? They aren't useful NOW," Bill opened his mouth to interrupt and say something witty but Nadine gave him The Look, "but they're not supposed to be! Judging by the size of these things, I would say that they were implanted when she was maybe three, four years old, and they were sized to her then. Something must have happened to her to cause a lot of tissue damage, and SOMEHOW, someone puts these implants in the most damaged areas so that not only can she continue to use those parts of her body without a significant loss in function or severe atrophy, but as she grows up her normal biological systems can take over again for the replacements! It's a medical science breakthrough, AND as far as I can tell all of these pieces are of contemporary human manufacture -- it could be reproduced and expanded upon!"

"So, wait, how does this explain her warping in with a magic scythe?"

Nadine's smile narrowed. "It... doesn't."

∙ ∙ ∙

For a second, Sailor Pluto thought she was dead. She was on her back in a grey, flat expanse with no landmarks, no sky, nothing. Purgatory if she ever saw such a place. Then she rolled her head and saw behind her the Gates of Time. Her first thought was that she'd been standing watch in purgatory this whole time and never known it.

She tried to sit up, and yelped at the horrible pain she felt in her abdomen when she tried to do so. She spat up a little blood too, and it tasted harsh and acidic. Oh, some stuff was definitely ruptured down there. Her stomach was probably full of blood, maybe her intestines were ripped too. She'd probably die without immediate medical attention, which there was no way to get in the no-space around the Gates of Time. And if she was about to die, that probably meant she was not already dead.

So she was still alive. Lucky her.

She wondered how long she was out, and by the caked-in bloodstains on her fuku, she figured it had to be a few hours at least. She didn't know why she was still Sailor Pluto if she was unconscious that long, she should have reverted back to Meioh Setsuna by now. Maybe the magic of the Moon Kingdom was the only thing keeping her alive at this point, and it can't turn off if it would kill her. If that was true, she had to have at least some kind of life support.

She tried to reach out to the normal world, return to Tokyo, get a doctor, but she couldn't. Not because she couldn't get up, she didn't need to. But the normally porous wall that separated the Gates of Time and the rest of the world had become rock-solid and she was unable to pass. Maybe this was the punishment the Guardians of Time laid on her for breaking their forbidden rule, trapping her here at the Gates and removing her ability to leave at all. It figures that the only time they would ever do anything would be while Pluto was unconscious. Pluto'd never actually seen the Guardians of Time, nor any direct evidence of their existence, but she knew they were there all the same and she knew they did not abide breaking their rules; much the same way a child knows that if he exposes an inch of skin out from under his blanket the boogeymen waiting in his room will devour him.

She looked at the Gates of Time again. She couldn't leave through there, and not just because it was forbidden; the stress of time travel could rip her in half in this state. But... her part in the battle was over. For good or ill, things were beyond her ability to change. She had to know if it was worth it, she had to know who was right. She had to look into the Gate.

She couldn't get up, but her Key was within arm's reach of her and she was within a Key's reach of the door. She pried the end of the Key into the space between the double doors and pushed one of them open, just a crack. Inside it, she saw Sailor Moon, standing on the wreckage of the Mugen Academy, a clear sky behind her, mournful sorrow on her face, and an infant child in her arms, a child that Pluto immediately recognized as Tomoe Hotaru, given a new chance at a new life. Good had triumphed. Usagi had refused to let her friend fall to evil, within her or without. The Pharaoh 90 was gone forever. All was right in the world.

Pluto gently eased the door closed with her Time Key and immediately passed out.

∙ ∙ ∙

Seventy-seven hours after arrival the girl regained consciousness. They knew it was seventy-seven at the most, it could have been shorter -- Nadine remembered that reading to someone in a coma sometimes helped them recover and even though she wasn't in a coma, they figured it couldn't hurt. So when the girl woke up Nadine was very much into the book she was reading to her and she thought it would be impolite to interrupt. "The girl", by the way, was Tomoe Hotaru, the very same who was daughter of Tomoe Suoichi, the man who their current working theory of events said had been killed by a Fader he had summoned to him in order to fulfill some kind of prophecy. They didn't mention this to Hotaru so she had no reason to correct them.

The four agents knew that it wouldn't be helpful to them or Hotaru to immediately start bombarding her with questions about the strange things she seemed to be tangentially involved in, but they really didn't have a whole lot else to talk about. When she asked who they were, they'd claimed to be FBI agents, and she'd accepted that with a level of eagerness that clearly indicated she didn't believe them for a second but wouldn't be fighting them in either case, and her queries ended there. After a couple hours of uncomfortable silence and awkward small talk, she began to speak about the events at the Mugen Academy.

"I don't know very much of what happened," she said, and that was the truth even if she knew more than she planned to tell them. "There were some... people, who were working at the Mugen school where my father taught sometimes. Witches. They said they were summoning a demon and that they had to use me to do it." She paused, wondering if she should make up a totally different story with no supernatural involvment, or just try to keep her father's culpability out and not let on that she was Sailor Saturn. She knew she couldn't let her own identity out, that was a secret that was important to keep, and she didn't want to tell them it was her own father who was responsible for all this, but if she told them something totally made up she might contradict something they already know and they'd know she was lying.

"They told me I was the Mistress Nine and that I had to summon the Pharaoh 90. I didn't want to do it but..." But what? But the alien thing who'd been alive in your body since you were four years old wasn't listening to your opinion? But you'd been destined to destroy Earth since before you even born? "...but it had power over me and it made me do what it wanted. We had set up a bunch of machines in the basement and we were sucking away the purity of people's hearts to find the talismans we needed to power them. And when we had everything, I called in all the students at the academy to protect me while I summoned the Silence."

The black man, Dr. Akens, paused in his note-taking. "The Silence? What happened to the Pharaoh 90?"

Hotaru was a bit embarassed that it looked like she'd been caught in a lie at one of the points she was telling the unvarnished truth. "It said it had many names. It was Pharaoh 90, or the Silent One, or just the Silence, or Isci ba Fan, or Death."

Akens nodded as if that answer was completely satisfactory. "Okay, go on. You were in the basement of the school and you were about to summon this demon?" There was no hint of derision in his voice.

"Some people broke in and tried to stop me. Well, they weren't just people -- they were warriors. Soldiers. They had been trying to stop us before while we were preparing things, to prevent us from gathering the talismans. One said she was the herald of a new age and the other was a warrior of elegance. They struck at me with magic. They couldn't stop me so I... so the demon struck them down and it made them watch." Did it make you enjoy it? "They were there to try and kill me so I couldn't destroy the world, and I wanted to let them, but I couldn't. Then there was another person who had come to stop me--"

"These three people come at the same time? Were they part of a group?" Nadine slapped Phil on the back of the hand. "Okay, okay, questions later, you just say what it is you need to say."

"But she wasn't like the first two. She was a warrior of love and justice. She was a Queen. And she said that I didn't have to die and there was some good in me. I tricked her into giving me the last thing I needed to finish the summoning and then I laughed at her. And when I was finally able to take control of myself again, it was too late to stop him. The only chance I had would be if I died." She looked down and to her side. "And then I woke up here."

"I'm sure that was very hard for you to say and I'm glad you could tell us all of it." Phil clicked his pen and stood up. "Now we have to go make a call to Quantico to see what we can do to best help you out. Guys, a word?" He walked to the door and held it open for the other three, then closed it behind him once all of them were out.

∙

Phil waited until he heard the door click shut behind him before he spoke. "Okay, I know I'm usually the one saying to take the witness at their word, but I'm having a hard time swallowing all this."

Donna crossed her arms just so she could uncross them again and look frank. "I know. Witches, summoning demons, in downtown Tokyo, and nobody notices? Mind-control demons, no less, pulling magic talismans out of people's hearts and fought off by quote 'a warrior of love and justice'?" She put out her hands as if to say 'give me something else, here'. "I want to call bullshit..."

Phil interrupted. "But the last time we did that it was about Bigfoot and by the end of the day I'd hit him with a folding chair."

Donna raised a finger to correct him. "You did not hit Bigfoot with a folding chair, Phil. You threw a folding chair AT Bigfoot, you missed, and then you ran away screaming." She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

Nadine cleared her throat. "I'm no psychologist," she looked pointedly at Phil, "but it's obvious she's got some serious guilt and self-esteem issues. You notice how she claimed someone else was controlling her and then she takes responsibility for all the evil it committed, even things she couldn't have done? And then someone virtuous comes in to try and kill her, and she wants them to succeed, but she betrays that person because she's evil? And then again at the end she thinks the only way for her to be worthwhile is to kill herself?" She sighed, a bit mournfully. "I think she needs extensive psychological treatment before we try and pry anything out of her."

Phil nodded. "She's obviously been affected by the supernatural somehow even beyond the weapon or the cybernetics -- some of the notes on Dr. Tomoe's computer make reference to a 'living locus' to use as a beacon to summon an extradimensional entity. He could have used her as an experiment, and I don't think that's beyond a man who has no pictures of his own daughter in his lab or his office, and she thought he was summoning a demon and that if she was involved she has to be evil. When the resonance disruptor overloaded when Bill broke it, if she was out-of-phase to serve as a beacon or whatever, it very well could have pulled her toward ground zero as it pulled her all the way into our reality." He shrugged. "Maybe. Anyway, it's pretty clear she's externalized the part of her that participated but used it as proof of her own malevolence instead of a means to avoid blame. And it doesn't seem unlikely to me that if someone tried to stop the experiment she'd interpret it as some holy champion swooping in to save her and show her mercy she doesn't think she deserves."

Bill sighed. "I know you're going to laugh at this, but I don't think she made any of it up. She's obviously leaving parts out, like where these magic soldiers come from or what they are or why she's got to be the one doing the summoning, but look at her! She knows she isn't a very good liar and she wouldn't be able to make anything up that would even be as believable as this. And she's got a look in her eyes that kids in First World countries don't have -- kids in Afghanistan who have been through wars and own AK-47s have it. That doesn't come out of your own subconscious, it comes from the world forcing you to grow up or get killed. And you all saw her Dad's basement, it was full of freaky shit we don't know the function of. How do we know he was trying to summon a Fader at all? How do we know the Fader came out as a side effect, or that it was even related at all? And, I can't believe I have to be the one to mention this, why did the Mugen academy blow up right before ourlittle incident, and how would she know about it if she wasn't there? She hasn't been hearing the news."

Donna snorted. "Yeah, Bill, you're right. I am going to laugh at that. Just because you think you see some kind of kindred spirit in a twelve- year-old Japanese girl doesn't mean her ludicrous Saturday-morning cartoon explanation of events automatically becomes truthful. I think you need to hear about a--" She would have said more but she was interrupted by one of the orderlies. 

"You are American... secret FBI agents, yes?" he said in stilted, uneasy English. They nodded. "There is telephone call for you, mister Itohiro Nakami. Phone is this way, please."

The orderly started walking off, and three of them followed. Phil stayed behind in the room to keep an eye on Hotaru, not sure if she'd really try to commit suicide but not wanting to risk it.

∙

Donna picked up the phone and thanked the man, then stretched the cord out as long as she could to stand as far away from the nurse's desk as she could get in case there were some people there who really had no business listening in on her conversation. Nadine and Bill stood next to her, in case the Director of the Hoffmann Institute wanted to talk to them, but mostly so they could talk loudly about football and drown out the conversation to any eavesdroppers. As it turned out, Director Itohiro did not ask to talk to either of them, so they heard only one- half of the conversation that occured, which sounded as follows:

"Nakami! How ya doing, you crazy kid you... To answer that question you just asked, I am fine, and thank you for caring so deeply about my well-being... Well there's been nothing to call you about until just now,Sir... Oh, no, the party didn't come together the way we wanted it to... Well, you know, a few crossed wires in the sound system and the subwoofer goes out and sends seven people to the hospital, plus there was this other party downtown that started a little before ours that everyone wanted to go to instead... No, I do not believe the two parties had anything to do with each other... Yes, we did see the guest of honor and we gave him a sendoff before everything blew up... Well it wasn't that important and we were busy with other things...

"The reason we are still here is, we found a, let's say a 'hitchhiker', 13 year old kid, whoooooo, 'got in to the party without buying a ticket', and we wanted to make sure she was all right... She just woke up, apparently the oh I'm gonna say 'guy she hitched a ride with' was a real rough trick who goes by the handle of 'The Silent One', and he was forcing her to do all kinds of crazy things before she told him to take a hike... That may be an alias, he also goes by 'The Silence', 'Pharaoh 90', 'Isci ba Fan'... Yes, that's what I said... She said that he was keeping her in the truck for a while before she jumped out, and she feels real bad about... Oh, so now code phrases are annoying? Not when I'm trying to figure out a way to say 'Lizard-men have stolen our Jeep with the Tesla Coil still inside it' in nonchalant-ese?...

"Okay, yes, that is what I am saying, she says it was controlling her and she shook it off... Well I don't know how, she didn't quite say, it was part of a much longer and less plausible story, we don't really... No... No, no, I didn't say that... Yeah, we'll continue to keep an eye on her... What?... Okay, sir, I think I need to mention the fact that she's 13 again in case you... Well yes I do in fact think it's relevant to the situation... You can come here if you want but that isn't... Well, because it's a bad idea, that's why!... No, I didn't, but... Yes, okay, that turned out to be a good call, but... Hello? Hello?"

Donna turned back towards Bill and Nadine, who'd stopped pretending to be talking about other things so they could try and figure out what the hell they were just talking about. "That was the Director," she sighed. "He says he's going to hop a plane to Tokyo as soon as he can and that we are to, quote, 'Make sure nothing happens to the girl -- in fact, I want you to recruit her by the time I arrive!'"

"Recruit her?" Nadine blinked.

"Oh yes, he was adamant. Tomoe Hotaru must be the Indigo Child, and the Golden Child, and a whole bunch of other colors of child, for all the fuss he was making. He would not take no for an answer."

They walked back to Hotaru's room, wondering how the hell they were supposed to convince a Japanese teenager who may or may not be suicidally-depressed, who may or may not be a living focus of evil, and may or may not be the target of a band of righteous magic warriors, to join up with the world's most destitute secret conspiracy, and more importantly why they were doing so.

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

HOFFMANN INSTITUTE AGENT NUMBER S-0014406 NAME: AKENS, DR. PHILIP JAMES.

AGE: 43 PREV. ASSOCIATION: Marquette University, Minnesota (Civilian, Education)  
ASSIGNMENT: Investigation & Response Team Rho

HISTORY: Dr. Akens had studied paranormal phenomena for over twenty years prior to joining the Institute, most of his adult life. He taught linguistics and anthropology at Marquette University in Milwaukee in order to maintain respectability and fund his journeys, but his true calling was that of parapsychology. Though his main field of expertise was ghosts and hauntings, he has made a name for himself in many fringe-science communities, including contributing to several almost-legitimate research papers, and was the subject of a short-lived documentary program for the Science Fiction Channel called "American Spookhouse".

Dr. Akens joined the Institute after being involved in an October 1992 incident that concerned the summoning of an ice-demon at a rural Idaho truck stop, where he had stopped on the way to investigate reports of a haunting in Portland (The reports turned out to be false).

PSYCHOLOGY: Dr. Akens has spent so much time advancing and arguing for unconventional theories of physics, biology, and history, that he has conflated these causes with his own self-worth. The validation of said theories is validation of his worth as a human being, to disprove them is to prove him a failure. Craves the respect and approval of the "scientific community" . A talented researcher, but all work must be checked for an extreme confirmation bias.

SPECIES: Human PROFESSION: Diplomat (Free Agent)  
ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL : 5

STR 09 [+0 INT 14 [+2  
DEX 06 [-1 WIL 12 [+1  
CON 08 PER 11

Observant [3: Dr. Akens is good at picking out small details. He recieves a -1 step bonus to Awareness -- Perception checks. Second Sight [4: After an aggravating fiasco in Spokane, Washington involving a warlock making heavy use of 'glamours', Dr. Akens has been trained in the ability to see through illusions. He recieves a -1 step bonus on any skill roll to pierce an illusion, and is always entitled to a WIL feat check to pierce illusion even if the skill normally allows none.  
Obsessed [+4: Dr. Akens is driven to prove the existence of supernatural phenomena to nonbelievers. When presented with someone who is actively denying his interpretation and theories of Fortean phenomena, he is at a +2 step penalty on all actions that do not involve proving that person wrong. Slow [+6: Dr. Akens isn't as young as he once was, and he wasn't really that fit when he was young. He suffers a +1 step penalty on all action checks.

Combat Information:  
Weapon: Score: Range: Damage (O/G/A): Type:  
Unarmed 4/2/1 +1 Personal d4s/d4+1s/d4+2s LI/O Gun 3/1/- +1 As Weapon As Weapon HI Folding Chair 4/2/1 +1 9/18/36 d4+1s/d4+3s/d6+3s LI/O

Action Check: 12+/11/5/2+1 Durability: 08 / 08 / 04 / 04 Actions Per Round: 2 Last Resort Points: 2

Athletics [09/4/2  
Vehicle Operation [06/3/1  
Stamina [08/4/2  
Knowledge [14/7/3  
Ancient Lore 1 [15/7/3  
Computer Operation 1 [15/7/3  
First Aid 1 [15/7/3  
Language (Greek) 2 [16/8/4  
Language (Latin) 2 [16/8/4  
Language (Hindi) 3 Language (Japanese) 3 Parapsychology 3 [17/8/4  
Social Science [14/7/3  
Anthropology 2 [16/8/4  
History 3 [17/8/4  
Linguistics 2 [16/8/4  
Awareness [12/6/3  
Intuition 1 [13/6/3  
Perception 2 [14/7/3  
Investigate [12/6/3  
Research 2 [14/7/3  
Search 2 [14/7/3  
Lore [12/6/3  
Fringe Science 1 [13/6/3  
Occult Lore 2 [14/7/3  
Psychic Lore 2 [14/7/3  
Interaction [11/5/2  
Interview 2 [13/6/3 


	3. Double Duty

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

For being an ancient, alien demon who has been on Earth longer than mankind has, simmering for millennia in his own toxic hatred, eternally trapped a handsbreadth away from reality, seeing everything but only able to affect it in the most transient of ways, ever longing to be free and to annihilate the world that has imprisoned him, for all this the creature most recently known as the Pharaoh 90 is a very patient, very accommodating sort.

He said his true name was "death" and that's closest to what he thinks of himself as, but it's not the truth. He doesn't really have a name and he doesn't much care about when people assign him the wrong one (unless, of course, he's using the truth about his name to intimidate a foolish mortal who he will in thirty seconds shred the mind from the body of and leave her locked into that moment of fear and despair and anguish forever, but we've already seen this). He's collected so many names over the years not because he feels compelled to wear a different mask to each culture he approaches, but because he just never bothers to correct them. Call him The Silent One, or Isci ba Fan, because the minds of those he occupies are utterly silent? Sure, that seems accurate enough, knock yourselves out. Want to name him Lucifer because he represents everything you're afraid of? Seems like as good a name as any for someone who wants all of you to die screaming. The Wolf of Ragnarok who will cleanse the Earth of the impure enemies of the Aryan race? Sure will, and he'll kill everyone else as part of the deal but we don't need to tell the Thule Society that. You just got done reading a book about the Pharaoh Akenaten who was so evil the Egyptians tried to scourge his name from history and you think the end of the world comes in '99? How about we have the Pharaoh of Ninety and oh just for you let's make a servitor psyche and call it the Mistress of Nine and now no surprises when we come together and end the world, okay?

Pharaoh 90 is used to working slow and subtle and not sweating the small stuff. He needs the help of human beings to arrive fully in our world and escape his personal limbo, but he doesn't need or care for them to know what it is they are doing. Sacrifice a man on a basalt altar and pass around a chalice filled with his blood? The only part of the ritual that mattered was gathering the psionic energy the man was spewing out as he was in terror for his life, but if you want to do something after that you go right on ahead. Lucifer isn't gonna stop you, because Lucifer doesn't want to take the effort to go find another demoniac cabal that might do things a bit more efficiently. Are you so deranged with guilt that you've got to rationalize that psionic energy harvest as plucking out the very essence of a pure soul? Then Pharaoh 90 says pluck, pluck away at those "pure heart crystals" because only four or five people on the planet Earth understand the physics of what you're doing and the rest of them are happy and well-adjusted and DON'T live on top on one of the biggest dark matter gateways in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Pharaoh 90 can afford to operate like this because he is immortal and has time to wait, even after countless summoners screw up and get something wrong or get caught by the authorities or break apart due to interpersonal differences. Getting impatient, moving too quickly, coming on too strong could just drive people away. He had time to get it right.

Pharaoh 90 chose to operate like this because, and deep down he realizes this, he is squeamish. He is capable of directly controlling a human mind but almost never does so, and even then only for incredibly short periods, because it is gross. To him it is like wearing someone else's dirty underwear, only instead of putting it on his groin he is putting it on the immaterial essence of his mind which is arguably more valuable. Even when he put into motion a plan that required close contact with his summoners, he psionically crafted a separate intelligence and used it to possess the human he was using as a focal point, one that was far less intelligent and skilled than he was, just so he wouldn't have to get his soul dirty by touching icky human brains with it.

And how did that plan turn out? Oh, everything got cocked up fourteen seconds before completion. Fourteen seconds and the aperture would have been wide enough to allow in not just a portion of the Silent One's mind, but his physical form in all of its destructive glory. Maybe two or three more seconds for him to kill everyone on the island of Japan. Looking back he saw at least a hundred places where Dr. Tomoe or the Mistress Nine or those intolerable Witches had screwed around for way more than fourteen seconds where he should have just taken direct control and moved things forward efficiently and quickly.

And instead, he was trapped again, worse, locked in a space that was no space, expansive and claustrophobic, a dull gray he could sense even without eyes, for the past 58 hours and 45 minutes. Unable to see or effect the hated human world at all, he's had a lot of time to reflect on his past mistakes, on how they led to this current failure, and Pharaoh 90 has made a decision.

He is absolutely done fucking around.

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 3: DOUBLE DUTY ∙ ∙ ∙

JUUBAN GENERAL HOSPITAL ROOM 409 TOKYO, JAPAN SUNDAY FEBRUARY 20, 1995, 3:03 PM

Bill Wheeler stared at the young Hotaru Tomoe across the back of a hospital chair. She stared right back at him, her indigo eyes patient and sad, like she was waiting for him to finish so she could go back to doing something she dreaded. She was in a hospital gown, an IV drip was in her arm and EKG electrodes were stuck to her chest and the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

"Your English is really good," Bill said more to fill up the awful Silence than to actually communicate an idea, "I bet that took a lot of practice."

"No, it didn't," she sighed, and almost let the sentence end there. Then added, "My father spoke English for his work, I've been speaking it as long as I have Japanese."

"Oh." Bill shifted his weight around on his chair. "It took me forever to learn Russian and now I barely get a chance to use it."

"That must have made you unhappy." She looked away from him, toward a wall with nothing interesting on it. "Having all that effort turn out to be for nothing."

He shrugged. "Well, I thought I was going to need it for when the Soviets invaded the US for the New World Order, so I'm glad I wasted my time if that was the alternative." He turned around and grabbed a couple cans that he'd laid on the ground behind him. "You want something to drink? You must be pretty thirsty after being out for two days. I got a blue can of stuff, and a purple can of stuff, neither of which I have any idea what's inside."

"I'm not thirsty, thank you." A lie, of course, but fulfilling needs like her thirst didn't seem like something anyone should waste their time on. "The blue can is fruit punch and the purple can is grape soda, if you want them."

He looked at the purple can and arched an eyebrow like he was examining some pre-Sumerian artifact. "Grape soda? That all? You're sure it isn't anything crazy like eggplant?"

She didn't stare at him, she didn't stare through him, she just pointed her eyes at him and then abandoned the controls. "No. It's not eggplant."

He shook his head and put both cans back down where he got them. More silence, clearly less comfortable to him than to her. Finally, "You know, they sent me in here to talk to you because they think I have some kind of rapport with kids."

"But you don't." Not an insult, a statement of fact, and one he could not dispute.

"I don't. They just think I do because I got this autistic kid to open up and tell us where his dad -- who was some kind of crazy wizard guy -- where he ran off to so we could stop him from blowing up Spokane. And the only reason I could do that was my cable had been on the fritz and one of the only shows I could get was the one he was obsessed with."

"And now they're forcing you do do things you don't know how because they don't know how either."

Bill snorted, in a half-laugh. "No, I volunteered. I didn't want any of them to come in here and lay a line of bullshit on you about how you won some kind of contest and you get to go on a fun trip or something stupid like that."

She looked down at her feet. "As if that ever happens."

"Exactly," he said, not fully aware of the sentiment he was agreeing with, "Those yoinks want to talk down to you like you're a little kid who can't put two and two together, and I know differently. They think you're pulling things from some TV show--" The lights suddenly went out and he stopped, though he could still see everything clearly by the sunlight coming in through the window. After a couple seconds there was a revving sound that he could only attribute to 'the backup generators kicking in' and power came back to the hallway one light at a time with a rhythmic 'thuk-thuk-thuk'. He stared up at the ceiling a few more seconds and blinked. "...Huh. I wonder what that was?"

Then a voice came on over the PA system, saying something in Japanese. Hotaru said "They just said my name and what room we're in", as if that information made her sad, but no more or less sad than anything else in the world made her.

∙ ∙ ∙

The five Senshi met at the hospital now that Usagi was awake, hopefully to shed some light on what had happened. Ami and Minako, who had gone home that fateful night, had a lot of creative explaining to do as to where they were and what they were doing but for the most part found family members who were happy they were safe and, relatively speaking, healthy. Makoto had just spent a night at the hospital, having no pressing reason to go home, and the doctors wanted to keep Rei overnight for observation even after she regained consciousness. Usagi had come to last night and looked to be getting the same treatment. Her parents were here, relieved beyond words that their daughter was alive. It had taken a couple of hours, but Usagi had finally convinced them to leave and let her discuss "girl things" with her friends; even then the five of them whispered as Usagi's parents were right outside the door.

"So they say they found you at Toudai?" Minako asked in a tone of voice that didn't know if it wanted to be inquisitive or gossipy. "How did you get to Toudai?"

"I don't know!" shouted Usagi as if she was denying a murder allegation, then remembering she was supposed to be whispering, "I don't know. The last thing I remember was... Sailor Saturn told me 'goodbye', and then I tried to save her, but I couldn't..."

"We don't think this was Sailor Saturn's plan," interrupted Rei, and quickly so Usagi wouldn't start crying. "She hadn't even turned to face the Pharaoh yet when it happened, and she looked like she was preparing to do something but she wasn't ready yet. When the portal exploded I think she was as surprised as anyone."

Usagi blinked. "So... what did happen?"

Makoto sighed. "We aren't sure. We think the Pharaoh 90 is dead, or back on his home planet, nobody's seen a sign of him or any daimons since the incident. We think that maybe a piece of equipment must have overloaded, or malfunctioned, or something. Nobody's been able to find Neptune, Uranus or Saturn either -- and there was no school on Friday and it's the weekend now so we've had time to look."

Ami piped up. "The explosion apparently took you to Toudai, and it took us about twenty meters closer to Toudai, and you were standing closer to it than us. If it was based on distance, Saturn may have been thrown past Toudai and Neptune and Uranus would have wound up somewhere between us." She paused and looked a bit disappointed. "That doesn't help us find out where they are now, though."

Usagi furrowed her brow. "Well, couldn't you use the Mercury Computer to track them, or plot a trajectory or scan for life signs or whatever it does?"

Makoto sighed again and uncrossed her arms. "The Mercury Computer can't do that any more, Usagi. None of our powers have worked since the incident. They're gone."

Usagi tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow. "No... they aren't..." she said while looking at Makoto like she'd grown a second head.

Makoto got ready to admonish Usagi about how this was serious and pretending there wasn't a problem wouldn't solve it... and then she realized son of a bitch, Usagi's right. That inner spark, that point of light, was there and simmering with the same intensity it ever had. It must have faded back in instead of appearing as abruptly as it left, and like the fabled frog in the pot of boiling water the changes had been too gradual for any of them to notice. It hadn't come back as of 8 AM this morning, which was the last time any of them checked, but that left seven hours afterward for it to gradually seep back. Minako, Ami, and Rei, all coming to the same realization, blushed and turned away in unison and felt like colossal jackasses.

"Wait," said Rei, "If we didn't lose our powers, something had to be keeping us from using them. And if that wore off eventually, what if the--"

She cut herself off abruptly when the lights went out; not that she required the lights to speak, and she could see just fine with the daylight from the window, but the lights going out just seemed like the kind of event that you stop talking for. There was a revving noise that sounded exactly like backup generators do when they kick in, and the lights in the hallway came back on one at time with a 'thuk-thuk-thuk'. A couple seconds later a young man came on the public address system and announced, matter-of-factly, "Tomoe Hotaru is in room 409."

"Well..." said Minako, "I guess that's one question answered?"

∙ ∙ ∙

A young man in a patient's gown threw open the door to room 409. Behind him was a woman in a similar gown with burn scars on her face and a man wearing what looked like a uniform of some kind, what Hotaru recognized as the uniform worn by students of the Mugen academy. All three of them had the same look of empty malice in their eyes.

Bill Wheeler shouted "Hey, es ocupado!" at the intrusion but the man didn't seem to hear him or care what he had to say. He walked to the side of the bed and reached for Hotaru and that was when Bill punched him in the face. The man recoiled but was not felled, and he glared at Bill as his two backups entered the room. He said something, something that was probably very intimidating, but as it was in Japanese and did not contain the words "konnichiwa", "sayonara", or "kamikaze", Bill did not understand a word of it.

Bill threw another punch that was slapped away by Gown-Man and retorted to with a fist to his throat. Bill gasped but was able to block the followup shot to his chest with a well-placed forearm. He threw a wild elbow to his right in case Gown-Girl was circling off to his side but he connected with nothing but air.

"There's no point to it," Hotaru said as if there weren't three people there to violently abduct her, "I can't do what they need me for anyway." She did not elect to repeat that in Japanese and if any of the three spoke English -- which they probably did -- they showed no reaction to it.

Gown-Girl wrapped her arms around Bill's neck from behind, prompting him to rush backwards and smash her against the wall, toppling an uneaten lunch tray off the counter and leaving clumps of rice sticking to her back. Bill tried to kick Gown-Man in the chest to keep him from closing in, but didn't have the room to extend his leg and ended up weakly tapping his thigh. Gown-Man grabbed his foot and started to lift it to throw Bill off-balance; Bill grabbed a hold of the IV stand next to the bed and smashed Gown-Man over the head with it and sent him to the floor like a sack of wet sand.

Meanwhile, Uniform-Man had calmly walked to the other side of Hotaru's bed and started to make off with her. He'd reached for her as if to grab her and throw her over his shoulder, but she raised a hand and indicated she'd go with him on her own. She disconnected the electrodes on her chest, leaving the white circles of gauze, and calmly removed the IV from her arm. She sat up and tentatively put a foot onto the floor; confirming she could walk, she stood up and began to follow Uniform-Man out of the room. She turned back and looked at Bill with an expression that said 'I could be resisting but what would be the point?'

Gown-Girl kicked Bill in the back of the knee before he could bring his other foot back into position and then both of them hit the floor . Bill was throwing elbows behind him to try and dislodge the girl but he couldn't get them far enough behind him with any force. She re-positioned herself to sit above him, one arm still around his throat, and she grabbed the clear plastic tube that had just been in Hotaru's arm and started wrapping it around Bill's neck. Bill tried to get his thumbs underneath the girl's improvised garrote to give himself enough room to breathe but he wasn't quite fast enough.

Uniform-Man was walking ahead of Hotaru and so he reached the door first and bumped into Donna Truitt, spilling some hot chocolate out of the mug she was holding. Both of them looked confused for a split-second, and then Donna shattered the ceramic mug across the man's face, dousing him with hot liquid as well. He winced and covered his eyes and left himself open for Donna to punch him in the solar plexus, take a half-step backwards, and then kick him in the stomach and send him rolling over the foot and into the bed Hotaru had just been laying in.

"Gack", called Bill from the floor, which combined with the panicked kicking of his legs was the Universal Language of Being Strangled for 'Help me, I am being strangled!' Donna quickly stepped over Gown-Man's fallen body and grabbed Gown-Girl's arms, both now pulling on the tube wrapped around Bill's neck. She grabbed the girl's thumb and yanked it back until she screamed and let go; Bill immediately leaned forward and gave Donna room to knee the girl in the face and send her, hard, into the wall behind her.

Hotaru looked at Uniform-Man's unconscious body dejectedly. Bill grabbed at his throat and gasped for air. Gown-Man started to get back up, and Donna stomped on his stomach. Bill looked up at her and tried to gasp a question but he didn't have the breath to make it out.

"I went over to the nurse's station to get Miss Tomoe some hot chocolate," she said to answer what she knew Bill was asking. A pause. "I can't leave you alone for a second."

"Those were Mugen Academy students," Hotaru said without looking at either one of them. "They're still under the Pharaoh 90's control and they want to bring me back to summon him. If they took me, I would have had another chance to kill him."

Donna thought about that for a second. "Yeah, Bill, what did you go and do that for?"

"Not..." gasped Bill, waving his arms in front of him for no apparent reason. "Gonna let you... Because you said... Had to die to... to do it."

Donna scoffed. "Okay, you were so not thinking about that until just now."

"It's the only way to stop him," said Hotaru. She paused a couple seconds, then, "I'm sorry they hurt you."

"It's okay," he gasped, "It's okay. Not your fault."

There was the sound of a huge crash from downstairs and faint shouting. "Oh, that can't be good," said Donna, "I think it's time we got the Hell out of here."

∙ ∙ ∙

"Why would they just announce where Hotaru was staying? They didn't even, like, page a doctor there or anything," asked Usagi.

Ami thought about it for a second. "You know, most of the people affected by the accident were students at the Mugen Academy, and a lot of them are still patients here or are visiting their classmates who are..."

They all looked at each other and shared the same realization -- which was, roughly 'oh, shit'.

"One of them must have found out where she was and then called them all up there!" said Minako, "We've got to get up there before they take off with her!"

Ami, Minako, and Rei got to their feet -- Makoto got to her one foot and one crutch -- and Usagi threw the hospital blanket off her body in one fluid motion. Rei held out a hand and stopped her. "Usa-chan, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean what am I doing, I'm coming with you to save Hotaru-chan!" said Usagi at a normal conversational level.

Rei winced. "No, you can't get up and start doing Sailor Senshi business!" she whispered as loudly as she could make a whisper go. "Your parents are right outside the door and you're not even supposed to be walking around yet! They'll stop you and they'll blow your cover!"

Usagi started to say something but Rei figured they were operating under a bit of a time limit, so she threw the door open and backed out of the room without hearing what she had to say.

"So, you girls sort out everything you needed to?" asked Usagi's father from a bench on the other side of the hallway. That was good, that meant he probably wasn't close enough to hear them.

"Oh, everything we could," chimed Minako sweetly. "But you know how us girls are, once we get to chatting we can go at it for hours!"

"Well, why the rush to leave? We were going to go get some lunch and bring some back for Usagi-chan, why don't you come and join us?"

"Thank you for the offer, Tsukino-sama, but we actually told a classmate we'd check on someone else for her today," said Ami, glancing nervously back and forth between a pair of people in Mugen Academy uniforms and the open elevator at the end of the hallway.

"And we already ate on the way over," said Makoto as she hobbled her way down the hallway, the rubber foot on the crutch squeaking against the linoleum. "We wouldn't want you two to pay for a meal we we're hardly going to eat, right?"

Mr. and Mrs. Tsukino looked at each other. "Well, all right, if you say so..." The girls turned away from him and started to move.

"...But before you go," said Mrs. Tsukino, and the four girls half-sighed and turned back to her, "I just wanted to thank you all for being such good friends to our little girl. We know you're the world to her, and it really means a lot that you showed up to support her."

Minako grinned. "Why thank you, Tsukino-sama! It's what friends are for."

That was when they heard the horrible crashing, grinding cacophony from the lobby, a noise followed up by mixed screams of panic.

Minako's grin vanished. "You two," she pointed at Rei and Ami, "409, take the stairs." They nodded and took off at a sprint, no longer caring about what the Tsukino family thought -- the the Tsukinos were a couple doors down the hall, looking into the lobby with shock and horror.

Minako and Makoto looked at each other, then Minako spun and kicked open the door to the room next to Usagi's. It was occupied, but by an elderly man who seemed not to respond to the loud noises or Minako's sudden intrusion -- it'd have to do. Makoto dug through her pockets for her wand, flinging aside newsstand receipts and Tootsie Roll wrappers and spare change, Minako slammed the door behind them, and almost in unison they cried:

"VENUS STAR POWER, MAKE UP!"

"JUPITER STAR POWER, MAKE UP!"

Light and sound and energy cascaded over the both of them as ancient magics lent them their power. In almost no time at all they had transformed, shedding their guises of Aino Minako and Kino Makoto to become Sailor Venus and Sailor Jupiter, warriors of the Silver Millennium.

The instant the spell had finished casting and their feet touched the ground again, Sailor Jupiter screamed and fell, would have collapsed utterly if Sailor Venus had not caught her.

"OW!" gasped Jupiter as she put a hand out on the wall to brace herself. "Okay, that's good to know. Sailor Transformation makes a leg cast go away. Sailor Transformation heals minor wounds. Sailor Transformation does NOT heal a broken leg."

"Are you okay?" asked Venus.

"Yes, go, go!" said Jupiter through gritted teeth, waving her free hand toward the source of the noises. "I'll catch up in a second!"

Venus nodded and stepped back into the hallway just in time to see a young man -- who was not wearing a Mugen uniform but certainly had the eyes for it -- shoulder-tackle a stunned Ikuko Tsukino to the ground. She ran towards them, as she did pounding on the door of Usagi's room and shouting "DO IT!" as if she hadn't realized that yet.

The probably-Mugen student spun from the prone Ikuko and punched Kenji Tsukino in the stomach, abruptly stopping his ability to counter-attack. He swept Usagi's father's legs out from underneath him and brought his fist to the man's jaw on the way down. Venus considered a 'halt, evildoer!' speech but figured now probably wasn't the best time, what with her best friends parents being beaten up and the horrible grinding and gnashing noise still coming from the lobby. She conjured forth the Venus Love-Me Chain and snapped it at the assailant, getting a loop from his left shoulder to right armpit. She gave it a yank and almost went toppling forward, the man had braced himself and prepared for a game of tug-of-war; and the extra bit of oomph Venus was expecting the chain to provide was conspicuously absent -- maybe the power wasn't all back yet.

The man grinned evilly as he looped the chain around his right arm and prepared to yank it out of Venus's grasp. For his benefit, she put on an expression of mock-dismay for a moment, then pointed her middle and index fingers at him and shouted "Crescent Beam SMASH!"

And SMASH! it did, nailing him right in the sternum and sending him backward and to the floor. He bounced off the wall with a satisfying 'WHUD', barely audible over the horrid gnashing from the lobby, and hit the ground like a wet rag doll. He was breathing -- the Crescent Beam wasn't fatal to normal humans even at full power -- but he wouldn't be trying anything crazy like this any time soon. Venus blew an imaginary wisp of smoke off her fingertips.

The door to Usagi's room flew open and out came Sailor Moon, looking dismayed and with a bunch of wires tangled into the ribbon on her chest. Just behind her was a grimacing Sailor Jupiter using her metal crutch in a gait so wide it would be more accurately named a 'pole-vault'. All three of them made it to Usagi's parents at about the same time, so all three of them saw what was in the lobby at once.

∙

Donna, Bill and Hotaru raced down the rear stairwell to the emergency exit, the van was parked closer to the back doors and there was no need to use the lobby. Hotaru had mentioned she couldn't run as fast as them and would slow them down, and that's why Bill was carrying her in his arms like a very large newborn.

"Where's Phil and Nadine, we can't leave them!" Bill said.

"Don't worry, they're not even here! They went off to get us some lunch, they walked because they figured you were going to need a while," Donna called back, taking the steps three at a time. "We'll just call Nadine on her cellular once we get clear of here and tell her what's going on!"

"This is all my fault," said Hotaru, "None of this would be happening if I wasn't still here."

Bill looked down at her and made a 'pfft' noise. "How do you know this is your fault? Crazy shit happens around me all the time, how do you know it's not my fault?"

"Yeah, Miss Tomoe," Donna chimed in, "This is all clearly Bill's fault." She picked up her pace to run at the emergency exit, leapt into the air, grabbed onto the doorframe, and kicked the door open with both feet. The alarm didn't sound. She hung there for a moment, waiting for Bill to catch up or for some kind of accolade, then she dropped to her feet and started rummaging through her pockets.

"Oh Jesus Donna, do not tell me you lost the keys!"

"Keep your pants on, I got them right here. Wait, what is..." She closed one eye and stuck the tip of her tongue out as she pulled out the object, a fat and gaudy pen topped by a black sphere intersected by a purple disc. "Oh, I almost forgot about that! I think this is your pen, Miss Tomoe."

Donna handed the transformation pen to her, obviously having no idea what it was, and Hotaru took it. Then she looked down at herself and realized her gown didn't have any pockets. She just held onto it rather than making a fuss.

"So where are we going to go?" asked Bill as they reached the car. "Police never help with this kind of stuff."

"No, not the police," Donna said as she unlocked the car. "Phil says there's a safe house somewhere around here. We drive a couple blocks, use a pay phone, ask him where it is."

Bill opened the sliding door and Hotaru walked in like a cow being led up the slaughterhouse ramp, feeling like an idiot holding her transformation pen. The seat was uncomfortable, lumpy. Bill opened his own door, jumped into the seat, and immediately swore. "Son of a BITCH!"

"What is it now?" asked Donna, clearly not caring.

Bill pulled a rectangular hunk of plastic from underneath his thigh. "Nadine left her phone in the car again."

"DAMN it!" Donna smacked the wheel. "What's the point of having one of those if you leave it in the car all the time?"

"I don't know!" yelled Bill like he was being accused of something. "Did they tell you where they were going?"

"No, they said they were going to quote 'poke around' a bit." She sighed. A huge, soundless flash of blue light came from some of the windows on the first floor, and she sat bolt-upright and turned the ignition. "We can't stay here -- they'll know to meet us at the hotel, right?" she said as she was already halfway out of the parking lot.

"Sure... do you know where the hotel is?"

"No, I don't. One of them was always reading a map -- is there a map in the glove box?"

Bill popped the glove compartment open, pulled out what was inside, and grimaced. There was a road atlas of the greater Tokyo area, and aside from the words 'Greater Tokyo Road Atlas' on the cover none of it was in English. "All in Japanese, Donna."

"Bill, I can't read Japanese." She moved into the turn lane despite the fact she had no idea where she was going.

"Well it's not like I put that there to foil you!"

"It's not -- if you -- it should --" Donna flailed, trying and failing to make this Bill's fault so she could have someone right there to yell at.

Hotaru sighed. "I can read the map."

Donna started to say something and Bill cut her off, then turned around in his seat much farther than he could if he wore a seatbelt. "Hey, if you're up for it I'm not going to stop you. Donna, why don't you stop at this light for a change and we can switch seats?"

She stopped, and they switched seats, Bill immediately identifying the source of discomfort in the back seat as his Mosin Nagant sniper rifle laid across the seat with a blanket thrown carelessly over it. Hotaru got into the front seat, buckled her seatbelt, and with two fingers holding her transformation pen opened the road atlas and began to navigate Donna toward the Juuban Hilton. It would be much later when she recognized the significance of this event, if she thought it was significant now she would not have done it. It was the first time after her recent attempt at suicide-by-Silence that she had put herself in a position where another person trusted her, no matter how minor the role.

∙

The main occupant of the lobby and the source of the horrible racket was a daimon. A creature, nine or ten feet tall, its body made of rusting steel and fraying wires, studded with electrical coils up and down its arms. The hospital's ceiling was only about seven feet high, so the monster was on its knees, and even then its head and the coils on its shoulders were gouging into the ceiling, scraping and tearing at the wiring and ductwork. There was a featureless black star on each of its hands, a sure sign of the Death Busters, and it was picking up the unconscious forms of the people around it, extracting heart crystals (of varying shapes and purities) by means of a sustained electric shock, and throwing the "empties" into a pile behind the reception desk. A couple people moved around it, bringing unconscious people to it from areas it could not reach, and the noises it made as its coils scraped the ceiling and its legs scraped each other was mind-searing.

"Stop right there, evildoer!" shouted Venus and Moon in near-unison.

The daimon turned to face them with its huge red LED eyes and wide, functionless metal jaw; it could only turn its head so far and ended up facing a point 30 degrees away from them. "SHUT UP!" it shouted, "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUUUT UUUP JUST SHUT UP!" Its voice was harried and a bit panicked; to the extent a electrical-demon-robot has an identifiable tone of voice.

The coils lining its body flared to life with crackling blue-white power, the lights all flickered, and the other people in the room stopped manhandling the unconscious bodies in the room and all ducked behind cover. The charge built up in a split-second that seemed to take hours, a hum rising in pitch until it was almost outside of human auditory range. Venus agonized for an instant before she dove into Moon to get her out of the way of the attack, but Jupiter was out of her reach and there was no way she could get out of the way in time. She didn't even try to move to avoid the attack, she just let go of the metal crutch and pushed it off to her side.

The daimon unleashed its attack and the lights went out, the Sun went out, everything in the world was pitch darkness when compared to the eye-searing illumination of that bolt of lightning. Venus and Moon had made it out of the way, but barely, and their hair and clothing were standing on end, and Minako was twitching slightly. Mr. and Mrs. Tsukino as well as the man Venus had knocked out, laying on the floor in the hallway, were twitching and spasming wildly.

Jupiter, totally unmarred, scoffed. She looked upward -- as if she could even see something mounted in the center of her own forehead -- and muttered "Lightning rods don't even work that way."

"GO AWAY!" the monster howled, waving its arm as it built another charge. "GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAYAWAYAWAY WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE!" Venus peeked her head around the corner and almost instantly another discharge of electricity, one mercifully less intense, streaked from the daimon's body directly into her face. She yelped and was thrown backwards a good two feet, luckily Moon grabbed her and was able to get her back behind the cover of the wall before the monster could discharge again.

"That thing's got a lot of zap to it," shouted Venus over the hum of its coils recharging.

"Yeah, I noticed!" Jupiter shouted back without looking. She crouched and reached for the crutch on the floor; as her fingers neared it another discharge leapt from the monster's arms toward the piece of metal, lightning arced from it to her fingers and gave her a shock. "Sailor Moon! Could you throw me your left shoe?" A couple seconds later she was hit in the head with a boot; it would have knocked her off her one-legged balance if she hadn't expected it. "Thank you."

Jupiter crouched down to pick up Moon's shoe, slowly so as not to throw off her balance, never taking her eyes off the daimon in the lobby. It was spinning in place by pounding its fist into the floor and dragging itself in a circle so it could face her better, but as long as it didn't have any other ranged attacks she was a good 5 meters out of its reach and it could take a long time to close that distance. Her leg was only a dull, throbbing pain when nothing was touching or moving it, but when it jostled around as she moved without a cast on the pain was nearly paralytic. There was no suitable material nearby for a splint, and she was going to need to hop around without shrieking in agony and collapsing. She knew Usagi was a couple of shoe sizes smaller than hers, and she hoped that her knee-high boot would be tight enough to hold the bone in place so the level of pain was at least manageable.

She slowly, deliberately dropped her shoe on the ground and lined her foot up with Usagi's boot. The daimon had rotated around to face her completely and appeared to have built up a full charge but was doing nothing, unless repeating "HURRY UP HURRY UP WHY ARE YOU TAKING SO LONG?" counted as something.

She grimaced and yanked the boot onto her leg in one motion, instantly she felt as if the lower part of her leg had been ripped off and replaced with a vat of acid filled with broken glass. She shrieked in agony and collapsed, thrashing back and forth slightly, biting down on her forearm in a mad attempt to have some kind of control over the sensation. A few of the hypnotized students poked their heads out of cover and resumed their business, though they all steered clear of where the three senshi were.

And then, the momentary pain passed, though the constant pain that underlied it was still pretty significant. Jupiter wiped a tear of pain from her eye and experimentally lifted her left leg a little. It hurt, it hurt like she'd been stabbed, but that was a lot less than it did before and she could deal with it if she had to. And she did. Gingerly, on three limbs, she crab-walked over to Venus and Moon, who helped her to stand.

"Are you okay, Mako-chan?" asked Moon, lifting her up by the arms to help support her.

"I think I'm going to throw up," she replied. Venus and Moon shifted their stances so no part of them was in front of her.

They waited a couple seconds and when Jupiter hadn't vomited in that time, Venus spoke. "It looks like it won't attack you because it knows it can't hurt you, and it can't move toward us fast enough to use its hands. Sailor Moon, I don't quite remember, do you have any magical attacks that only use your hands?"

Moon looked off to the left for a second as she thought. "Well, I can throw my tiara... other than that no, they all use the Moon Rod. Why?"

Venus nodded. Her hair was still pointing out from her in every direction; she looked like she'd eaten a Van de Graaf generator. "That's what I thought. Okay, Jupiter, what I want to do is have you lean away from the wall just a little so it can see like half of your body. I only need two fingers to use the Crescent Beam, so I'm going to stand behind you and try to shoot it without exposing more than my fingertips, and hope he can't hit those when they're next to you. Think you're up to it?" Jupiter swallowed audibly, but nodded.

Venus and Moon helped her most of the way over to the edge of the wall, then Jupiter hopped out into the monster's field of vision on her own, sharply inhaling through her teeth with each jump. The monster was still staring at them, still humming and crackling with power, and when it saw her it resumed shouting. "STOP WASTING MY TIME! WHY ARE YOU WASTING MY TIME? STOP WASTING MY TIME! JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" Jupiter leaned forward and put her left shoulder on the wall, and looked at the daimon warily.

"What is this thing's problem?" Venus asked. "Usually they're telling us their name and how they're going to defeat us and how we're sailor-brats, or sailor-runts, or smelly-senshi, or something. This thing is freaking out like we're bothering it in the middle of a test. Okay, Jupiter, press your right arm to your side."

Jupiter did as she was asked, and pressed her arm to her side. "I know, it's acting like we're interrupting this real important job, but it isn't actually trying to do it. Or trying to move around and attack you two, or get rid of me." Venus stretched out her arm, reached behind Jupiter, and pushed her middle and index fingers between Jupiter's arm and ribs until just the tips were poking out the other side. "And there's still four guys there, stacking up people for the monster to drain, even though he isn't doing it. They're not trying anything, it's like they don't know we're here. Like they can't tell what's going on, or even talk to each other." She looked down at her armpit, closed one eye, and looked back up at the daimon. "All right, you're aiming at him."

Venus howled "Crescent Beam SMASH!" not even bothering with the gestures this time. Brilliant yellow energy shot from her fingertips right above Jupiter's elbow and streaked toward the daimon. What happened next was over in a fraction of a second, but was so bright that Jupiter could just study the afterimages it left in her vision to determine what happened. The electrical coils had all fired at a point in space about five meters away from the monster and that's where the streak the Crescent Beam left in her eyes stopped. She blinked and shook her head a few times to dispel the afterimages. "Did I get it? What happened?" asked Venus.

"No," said Jupiter, "It shocked the beam and dissipated it in midair. I think. It was real quick."

Venus scowled. "It's a laser! Lasers don't even work that way!"

"Electricity doesn't work that way either!" snapped Jupiter in exasperation. "Oh, wait, hang on, pull your hand back. SPARKLING WIDE PRESSURE!" Jupiter's arm shot out in front of her and the hallway was illuminated by pure white light. "Okay, two of them are coming for us, it can suck up my attacks if they aren't directed at it, pull me back pull me back PULL ME BACK!"

Venus yanked Jupiter back into the hallway by the back of her fuku; she started to fall, but Sailor Moon caught her outstretched arm. A couple seconds later one of the probably-Mugen students rounded the corner, blank malice in his eyes, and took a Moon Spiral Heart Attack to the face for his trouble. Then, after a couple more seconds, the second student rounded the corner with the same expression, in almost the same pose, and Sailor Venus kicked him in the chest. He staggered backwards long enough for Sailor Moon's energies to recharge and give him a Moon Spiral Heart Attack to the face. There were now five unconscious bodies laying in the hallway, splayed out on top of each other, in a location where they couldn't move them for fear of being electrocuted.

∙ ∙ ∙

"You said we were going to go get some lunch, why are we going to the mall?"

Dr. Neary shrugged. "They have a Chik-Fil-A in this mall. I like Chik-Fil-A."

"I can't stand malls," muttered Dr. Akens, "They're like mausoleums of thoughtless consumerism. Japanese malls are worse."

Nadine arched an eyebrow as she opened the door for Phil to usher him in. "Mausoleums?"

He rolled his eyes. "Like a monument to thoughtless consumerism, only it's inside a building and there's a bunch of them."

She considered it carefully. "Okay, I guess that works." She shut the door behind them and took the lead, walking purposefully without consulting a map or guide. "Anyway, we're not just here for Chik-Fil-A, we're going to hit up a gift shop and buy the Tomoe girl something cute. Something she'll like to have."

Phil scoffed. "And will we write on the tag 'By Accepting This Plush Octopus You Agree To Employment By The Hoffmann Institute'?"

"Oh, come on. Her parents are dead, her dad tried to blow a hole in space and time with her, she's got no siblings, she sounded like she didn't have any friends -- nobody she wanted us to tell that she was here, that she was safe. She needs people to be kind to her, show her a little love." Donna was wrong, but neither of them had any way of knowing that.

"I know, I know. I'm just... why would he tell us to recruit a 12-year-old Japanese girl?"

"Hey, hey, she's 13. That's different." Phil gave her the exasperated look he got to use so seldomly. "Eh, I don't know. Donna made it sound like Nakami thought she had some kind of power and that we'd need to use it more than we'd need to study it."

"There's that kid in Richmond who can set people on fire with his mind." Donna nodded. "We put him under surveillance, we never asked him to join us." Donna shrugged. "What does he think she can do that's better than that?"

"Set people on water, maybe? That'd be a neat trick." She sighed. "I don't like it any more than you do. This girl needs extensive therapy and instead we've got Bill 'The Government Took My Skynyrd Tapes' Wheeler up there, lying to her about how she's won a contest and gets to go on a fun trip or something. But once Nakami gets something in his head like this, he's not going to let go."

Phil cracked the hint of a smile. "In his enormous head with his big black eyes." Nadine giggled, slapped him lightly. A couple of people jostled into them as they ran by, then a couple more. "Is there like a band making an appearance here? I swear I hear this, like, teeny-bopper screaming that OH SHIT."

That last part Phil had said when he started to look around him and saw why people were running away and screaming. And as reasons for people to run and scream go, a four-armed, twelve-foot-tall woman with hands the size of hubcaps whose entire body was wreathed in flame seemed like a goddamned good one. Phil and Nadine both silently wished they had a job that let them scream and run away.

The burning monster was a couple hundred feet away from them, rushing back and forth into packs of people. It was grabbing people at random but it didn't look like it was trying to kill them -- it seared them a little and then threw them into a pile by the entrance it used. Even though it had four arms and could carry two people at once, each time it grabbed one it stopped, held it for a couple seconds, threw it onto the pile, and then took off in another direction for a new target. It ran back and forth between crowds, jumped up to the second floor and back down again, never sticking with one group as long as it could. There were a couple people the monster seemed to be ignoring right by the pile, who looked like they were picking people up and stacking them.

Phil and Nadine were wondering what the hell they were supposed to do when that question was at once answered and made a lot more complicated. Two people jumped down from the second floor of shops not five feet in front of them, a blonde and a blue-hair, both of them wearing what appeared to be white one-piece swimsuits with miniskirts attached.

"The herald of a new age, I am Sailor Uranus!" shouted the blonde on the right.

"And I am Sailor Neptune, appearing elegantly," said the blue-haired one on the left.

"Oh, hell," muttered the old black man and the short half-Korean doctor standing behind them.

∙ ∙ ∙

Behind the three Senshi, the doors to the stairwell opened up, and out came Sailor Mars, panting, bruised, and disheveled. "Where's Hotaru-chan?" called Sailor Moon immediately, but Mars waited until she'd walked over to the other three, and took a second to catch her breath.

"They got to her before we did." Pant, pant. "The room was a mess -- she must have put up a hell of a fight, the shelves were knocked around, bed was beaten to hell, two unconscious people on the floor, hospital gowns. One looked like he had a Mugen class ring, we think she must have fought those two off, before another one grabbed her."

Venus and Moon arched their eyebrows and asked, "Wait, Hotaru did that?"

"I can't think of anyone else who would. Mercury..." she paused to gasp for air, "Mercury tried to track her with her computer, but there's too much electrical interference or something. But someone -- who may be the 'World's Greatest Aunt' -- broke a mug of hot chocolate in there and it was still hot, so we had to have just missed her. Would have... would have looked for her but we got attacked right after."

"Is there another daimon in the hospital?" asked Moon, panic rising in her voice. If the daimon in the lobby was going to be the average for today, they had serious problems.

"No, no." Her breath was coming back. "People, they were -- you know what, I'm just going to call creepy hypnotized people 'Mugens' even if we don't know they went to the school. Like four Mugens came out of the stairwell after we did and came at us. Fire doesn't have a 'stun' setting and we couldn't kill them so I was punching them while Ami was using her magic. We got that group under control pretty quickly, but then five more came out of the elevator. Then while we were fighting them, two more from around the corner, and then another four from the back stairs. I think every Mugen in the building came for us."

"Was it an ambush?" asked Venus.

"No, they all were surprised to see us, and they kept getting in each other's way during the fight, and they would all try to get into room 409 before they started really going at us even though we were outside it. It's like they all just thought nobody else was going to get Hotaru so they had to do it, and they all showed up at once. Anyway, it took us a while, and by the time we dealt with the last ones the first ones were coming back to consciousness, but we got them stuffed into a supply closet and we tipped over an ice machine in front of it. Ami was going to check on the other floors and see if anyone needed help getting out and I ran down here to see if you needed any." She paused and looked downward. "Sailor Moon, where did your other shoe go?"

Moon and Venus stepped to the side to reveal Jupiter laying down behind them. She raised her arm weakly and gave a thumbs-up.

"We've got some kind of super-Daimon down here" said Venus. "Hits us with a bolt of lightning if we expose ourselves to it, luckily it's too big to move around and chase us. Can't hurt Sailor Jupiter, but..." she looked down at Jupiter on the floor, whimpering at a volume she thought the others couldn't hear. "but her Sailor Transformation took her leg cast off and it almost hurts too much for her to move. She's using that boot to hold it in place but it's not as good as she needs it to be. And her lightning attacks can't hurt it, either. The Daimon was extracting Heart Crystals out of everyone in the lobby, now it's just waiting on us and shouting we should hurry up. There's two uh, Mugens out there with it, but they haven't come for us."

Mars contemplated for a second. "Did you try standing behind Jupiter and firing at it?"

Moon shook her head and frowned. "Venus had that idea, but it zapped her Crescent Beam out of the air."

Mars stopped for a second. "Wait, I thought the Crescent Beam was a laser?"

Venus threw her hands in the air and exclaimed "I know!"

"Okay, okay, pull me back up, I've got an idea," said Jupiter from the floor. Venus and Moon reached down to help her get to her foot. "Okay, from what I can see is that all of those electro-coils he's shooting power out of are on his arms and shoulders. The ones on his shoulders are caught in the ceiling and they can't hit anything, and if he was standing up the with his arms at his sides the arms would cover everything, but he's bent down and his arms are out in front of him like a gorilla and they don't cover as much."

"So we leave out the back exit and come around through the front while he's facing you?" asked Venus.

"No, no," Jupiter shook her head. "The entrance isn't on the opposite wall from this hallway, and he can still cover a wide area. And the other two walls don't have any doors that link to the rest of the hospital. You could shoot him but you'd have to do it from directly behind. Moon, is that Moon Rod made out of metal? Or plastic?"

Moon felt its weight in her hands, rapped it lightly against the back of her hand. "Uh, I think it's made out of love. It feels pretty solid."

"Do you think that things made of love conduct electricity?"

"Not that I can remember, no."

"Okay," said Jupiter, "Do you mind if I borrow it?"

"Why do you need the Moon Rod, Jupiter?" asked Venus.

"Because it's not made of metal and it's not made of something breakable," said Jupiter as one continuous sigh. "I'm going to get in there and go to the far wall and get it to face me. When I do, I'm going to call to you guys and that's when you pop out from behind that corner and give it both barrels, and hopefully destroy it." She glanced at the rod. "I need the rod because there's two Mugens still out there and if they attack me I'd like to have a weapon that I can carry, that won't get me zapped, and won't snap when I smash it against someone's head."

"I don't think it was meant to be used like that..." Sailor Moon looked down at the rod in her hand, "...but if you need it, then you need it, Mako-chan." She placed the enchanted scepter of the Moon Kingdom into the hands of someone planning to use it as a billy club and smiled.

"All right. Carry me as far as you can, but don't peek around until I shout for you. And if you see Ami... ask her where they keep the painkillers here. The ones they have to lock up." They carried her to the edge of the hallway, and she experimentally poked the Moon Rod around the corner; when it wasn't struck by lightning, she started hopping her way into the lobby.

The monster appeared not to have moved from its position, and when it saw Jupiter it started yelling "WHY HAVEN'T YOU GONE AWAY YET? WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME DEAL WITH THIS! YOU'RE DELAYING THINGS! GO AWAY!" Jupiter wondered what it would do if she really did leave, as the creature had seen her vanish behind the wall and yet had not resumed whatever it was doing that was so important. Next to it was a stack of unconscious people, three wide, waiting on the daimon to drain their pure hearts. Everyone in the room had been assembled into the stack, save for the six or so that had already been drained, and the stack was now about thigh-high -- really too big to stay together on its own; the Mugen who had been piling them together was now just picking up the same two people who kept falling off the top and placing them back on the top, where they fell off within seconds. Occasionally someone started to wake up, and the Mugen punched him or her in the head until they stopped moving again. The other Mugen was walking back and forth, looking under the seats and benches as if checking for people he missed. He was also looking underneath magazines and handbags and potted plants, so maybe he was looking for very tiny people he missed.

Jupiter hopped, slowly even for someone hopping on one foot, into the lobby. She kept a wide berth around the daimon -- she was pretty damn sure she wasn't immune to an electricity-monster punching her. Or snapping her like a toothpick, which he could damn well do with those massive hands. She hopped a slow circle around the creature, wishing that she was shorter or the Moon Rod longer so she could use it as a cane. The daimon continued to shout "GO AWAY! GO AWAY! SHUT UP AND GO AWAY!" at her, and rotate its head to keep her in sight, but once she'd made 30 degrees of the circle around it she realized it was not rotating its body to face her. She wouldn't be much use if SHE was behind it, because those damn generator-arms of its could draw away her lightning attacks from a much greater distance and wider angle than they stopped Venus's Crescent Beam from. She waited for Mugen Number 2 to pass her by as if she didn't exist, then picked up the issue of Rolling Stone he'd just lifted up and looked beneath for the fourth time. She put her hand on the bottom corner, pointed the spine at the daimon, and gave it a fling. The pages flapped open as the magazine turned end over end, and then John Entwhistle on the front and the bottle of Absolut vodka on the back were both incinerated by a burst of electricity from the daimon's arms. "YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING! WHY WON'T YOU STOP DOING IT?" it hollered, but obviously it thought she did do something as it moved its arms around and started to rotate its body by pulling in a circle on the floor. The two Mugens looked up at her as if she had not already been in the room for a good five minutes.

Mugen #2 was closer to her and without a snarl or a growl, just the same unchanging nonspecific loathing, he charged at her. Jupiter grabbed a bench with her right arm and pulled herself out of his path while her left arm swung the Moon Rod into his face. She caught him in the jaw with a satisfying CRACK and he veered away from her but he didn't fall. Mugen #1 had to run in a circle around the daimon's legs and on the way it looked like he'd picked up an old man's cane, which he was holding aloft like Excalibur. He closed the gap to her and swung it at her neck with both hands, she swung at it with the Moon Rod in only one. The instant they collided the wooden cane snapped in two, Mugen #1's half continuing on its path downward and to the left and Jupiter's half smacking her in the face and spraying her with shards of wood. Mugen #1 had overextended himself after the swing, and with one eye still closed because of the sawdust Jupiter bashed him on the back of the head with the base of the Moon Rod.

Mugen #2, recovered and re-oriented, charged Jupiter from her left. She swung at him again, aiming for his throat, but the angle was awkward and he easily ducked it. He went into a baseball-slide position and kicked her right in her broken leg with his full running momentum, and this time she did throw up. A stream of putrid yellowish-green liquid, filled with the remnants of this morning's oatmeal and the Twix bar she'd got out of the vending machine a couple hours ago, surged forth from her mouth and coated the front of her fuku as well as the kneeling form of Mugen #1. It didn't really feel all that worse than it had before, to Jupiter's perception, in fact the pain seemed a bit duller than just a moment ago. But the fact she was vomiting, her vision had whited out, she'd dropped the Rod and fallen to the floor and was shrieking incoherently, all said that her relative peace might indicate she was in more pain then she could actually comprehend. She didn't even know that was possible.

She felt a hand on her arm, then she felt herself being moved, and guessed it was Mugen #2 dragging her along the floor to throw on the pile. Her voluntary muscle movement was back, that only took a few seconds, but her eyes still weren't giving her anything. Not wanting to wait and get dragged within arm's reach of the daimon, she reached across her chest to grab the arm holding her, wiggled it slightly to get an idea of where the torso it was attached to was, and then yanked it toward her. She threw up her elbow to where she thought the man's head would land but she was working blind and misguessed and the man's head landed in the middle of her chest. He might have even liked it if he had all his mental faculties, and her chest wasn't coated in vomit. He started to push up off of her but she grabbed him by the head with one hand, shouted "Sparkling Wide..." and then punched him in the neck with the hand that her attack was charging in. He twitched, and she twitched because she was touching him, but after they were done twitching he had stopped moving and she still could. Theoretically.

She rolled him off of her and put a hand over her eyes. "WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? WHY WON'T YOU GO AWAY?" yelled the daimon.

"Are you still back there?" shouted Jupiter over the monster's whining.

"Mars went to do another sweep and make sure everyone is out," shouted Moon's voice back. "What's happening? Are you okay?"

Jupiter moaned slightly. "No, no I'm not okay. It might take me a minute or two to get back up. And I threw up on your Moon Rod. But me and Whiny Shocker are all that's left here."

"I forgive you," said Moon, way too quickly.

"Okay, just, just give me a minute, okay?" The pain was fading, and when it was fading from 'incomprehensible' that meant it was fading into 'comprehensible and ludicrously severe'. Jupiter tried to concentrate on her breathing, concentrate on something that wasn't the pain in her leg. That wasn't easy when it felt like her lower leg stretched up to her collarbone and some enterprising advertiser has secretly replaced her bone marrow with molten magma and then turned to the camera and said 'let's watch'. She wiped away more tears of pain and pretended they were laughter.

Her vision was back, if blurry, and she hiked herself up on her elbows and looked around. Neither of the Mugens was getting up, and the monster had not turned away from her, it was still shouting for her to leave, or stop bothering it, or stop doing things in general. And she would have been glad to if there hadn't been a pile of people next to it it was going to vacuum the hearts out of.

She looked at the edge of one of the benches and briefly considered using it to stand back up; when she realized that she would rather shoot herself in the head with a gun that shot steam locomotives than stand up again she rejected that plan. She rolled over slightly and grabbed another magazine -- a National Geographic with a meerkat on the cover -- and slipped it underneath her left heel so it would slide across the floor easier, and she began to drag herself to her destination with her elbows, pausing whenever she passed a magazine to throw it at the monster and make sure it was still following her. It did, dragging itself with its hands to follow the movements of her dragging herself with her arms, all the while shouting its complaints and questions.

Eventually she made it to the other side of the lobby without crossing within range of it, she could see the entrance of the hallway where Venus and Moon and maybe the others were, and all of the monster's generator coils were pointed at her. But she hesitated. She couldn't help it. This monster put her through hell and she needed a little personal satisfaction. So she waited until the monster shouted "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?"

Just so she could shout back "Because you never shut up, that's why! VENUS! MOON! HIT IT NOW!"

∙ ∙ ∙

"Bill, you said this was a mixtape, are there any songs on this that aren't 'Free Bird'?" Donna slapped the "off" button on the car stereo in disgust rather than switching to the radio. She mashed the 'eject' button on the tape deck with her thumb, meaning to throw the tape out the window, but apparently Bill became a damn mongoose when his Skynyrd tapes were in danger and he snatched it away from her in the blink of an eye.

"Okay, that was three blocks and that looks like the mall, so take a right here," said Hotaru from the passenger's seat. She tipped to the left which told her that Donna had followed her directions again -- and she'd never complained once! About the directions, anyway.

"So, you're saying that if you got a New York strip steak," said Bill as he waggled the tape a bit before he slipped it in his pocket, "you'd rather put butterscotch on it than steak sauce because it's 'different'?" He looked at Hotaru for some support; she didn't giggle, but she felt like it was the kind of thing that was supposed to make her giggle, theoretically. "Because that's what I'm hearing you say."

"Wow, Bill. You've broken your previous record for 'car with feet', I do believe that is the stupidest analogy ev-- LOOK OUT!" Donna stood on the brake, a pedal to which she was not usually accustomed, and the car screeched to a halt. Hotaru was held in her seat by the safety belt, and Bill collided face first with the back of her seat with a 'thud'.

Nobody had to ask why she stopped, it was the same reason that there weren't any cars behind her honking their horns or swerving past her and giving her the finger (though in Japan they rarely did that anyway). It was because there was a gigantic woman -- ten feet easy -- with no hair, armor made of scuffed and dented galvanized steel, safety-cone orange skin threaded through with what looked like piping, cable, and rebar, a black star on her forehead, and a massive pneumatic piledriver replacing her right arm below the elbow. There were two piles of people, one on either side of her, and she picked up someone from the larger pile on the right with her non-piston hand, caused it to glow as she pulled something out of him, then dropped him on the pile on her left. At her sides a couple of people scurried about and straightened the piles.

"That's a monster," said Donna.

"That's a monster," agreed Bill.

"That's a daimon," said Hotaru like she regretted it. "They're what the Pharaoh 90 sends to gather pure hearts from people."

Bill didn't gloat even though he was totally right and Donna was totally wrong about her story, there would be time for that later. Instead he said, "It's bad, I'm going to shoot it." He grabbed a handful of rifle bullets out of the seat, stuffed them into his jacket pocket, and jumped out of the car with his Mosin Nagant in hand.

The sighting on the scope was useless since at least two people had sat on it, but the monster was across the street and he didn't need a damn scope. Bill waited until he saw both humans' and the monster's backs were turned (they seemed not to notice him but best not to take any chances), then he rolled from behind the van, dropped to one knee, braced the rifle against his shoulder, and fired.

The daimon-monster's head snapped forward, but not far enough, and when it came back up again bullet fragments fell out of the little bloodless pit they made in the back of it's head. "Bulletproof," he muttered, "I should have guessed."

The monster whirled in place to face him and pointed with her left hand. It shouted something in Japanese -- Hotaru was the only one to recognize it as "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? WHY AREN'T YOU GOING AWAY?" It started to run at him, the ground shaking with her every step. Oddly neither of her "attendants" seemed to notice, and they were just concerned with straightening the human piles that kept falling apart with her ground-shaking steps.

Bill jumped on the back bumper of the van and shouted "PUNCH IT!", the tires squealed, and a massive metal piledriver passed through the space where his head was about half a second before. He held on to the rear-doorhandle for balance, fearing if he opened it he'd fall off the narrow rear bumper.

The monster turned and chased after the car, yelling "I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS! YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME!" but making no attempt to break off pursuit. Her legs were long, but heavy, and with the lack of traffic Donna quickly got a five-block gap between them. That's the point when she pulled an abrupt 180 and sent Bill rolling off his perch and into the curb. At the same time, the passenger-side door opened and out hopped Hotaru, holding a Japanese road atlas in one hand and her transformation pen in the other. Almost before her feet touched the road the van took off with a squeal of rubber and drove straight at the monster.

"Oh, this is stupid," muttered Bill. Hotaru nodded her assent.

The van actually managed a speed of 40 miles per hour or so, and the monster running at least ten, when Donna yanked on the handbrake and spun the wheel to her right and sent the car into a slide. She opened the door and stepped out as coolly and calmly as if the car had been standing still and a second later, the van and the daimon collided, rolling backward down the center line of the road, emitting shrieks of pain and a horrible grinding noise of metal on metal. Donna kissed the back of her knuckles and threw her hand up in the air in the 'V for Victory' sign, walking calmly toward Bill and Hotaru.

When she heard the monster's massive piston-arm fire and blast the wrecked heap of the van away from her, Donna broke into a sprint.

"STOP IT! STOP IT! YOU'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING! GO AWAY!" shouted the monster as it rose from the tangled heap of machinery, and it was clear that Donna had done something. Her left arm was chopped off above the elbow and the stump oozed a thick purplish glop. Several pieces of the car's frame were piercing through her torso, her right eye has been gouged out along with a good chunk of her head. Still she ran at them once more, howling "SHUT UP! IT DOESN'T WORK! SHUT UP!"

Hotaru winced and after two seconds of thought that lasted forever, dropped the road atlas to the sidewalk, took a deep breath, and called out, "Saturn Planet Power, Make Up!" She was bathed in flashing, multicolored light, wreathed in ancient energy, and within seconds she was remade. She was taller, older, and she stood in the stance of a confident warrior but her eyes were two purple and black pools of terror and doubt. Her flimsy hospital gown was gone, replaced by a white fuku with a dark purple skirt. Dark boots went up to her knees, white gloves went to her elbows. A large purple bow was on her chest, adorned by a many-pointed gemstone. On her head rested a golden tiara, and in her hand was a long pole attached to a deadly-looking twin-headed blade.

Bill looked at her with complete confusion. Donna looked at her with a face that was too contorted by running for her life and yelling "SHIT! SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!" to adequately express complete confusion. The daimon was still shouting and chasing Donna but didn't look at her at all. For a horrid moment Hotaru felt as if she was in a play and she had forgotten her lines. Then after a second she yelled,

"The herald of catastrophe, I am Sailor Saturn!"

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

HOFFMANN INSTITUTE AGENT NUMBER S-0014407 NAME: TRUITT, DONNA KIMBERLY

AGE: 31 PREV. ASSOCIATION: Central Intelligence Agency (Governmental, Espionage)  
ASSIGNMENT: Investigation & Response Team Rho

HISTORY: Donna Truitt was recruited by the CIA shortly after graduating from college (UC Santa Cruz -- go Banana Slugs) to be an infiltration and extraction expert. Shortly after her training, she found she could not do the jobs asked of her by the government and resigned. She sold her skills as a professional thief on the black market, but only to those who she believed would not use the things she stole to harm others, and neither would she steal from people who she believed it would actually harm. Needless to say, her business was incredibly slim, and most of her jobs were aborted halfway through after finding out some unpleasant detail about the person who hired a shadowy professional thief on the black market to steal something.

Mrs. Truitt joined the Institute after being involved in an October 1992 incident that concerned the summoning of an ice-demon at a rural Idaho truck stop, where she had stopped while fleeing a previous employer.

PSYCHOLOGY: Donna Truitt is massively insecure. Far moreso than the other three insecure members of I&R Team Rho. She has built an ideal of herself as a limitlessly-cool, vastly-skilled, utterly ice-hearted professional and hates every part of herself that doesn't live up to this. She hated herself for her inability to kill people for the CIA, and for her inability to steal from orphans, and constantly is driven to prove herself as living up to this imaginary and sociopathic ideal -- but finds herself incapable. Reacts with great hostility to any perceived attempt to mock her for her shortcomings as well as any attempt by others to act as if they are superior to her.

Skilled enough at 'infiltration and extraction' to warrant retaining, and Institute business seldom conflicts with her moral code enough to cause problems. Needs to be surrounded by a team to keep her in check and provide an outlet for combative urges. A team of three or four mentally healthy individuals would have smothered her in her sleep by now.

SPECIES: Human PROFESSION: Free Agent ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL: 5

STR 09 [+0 INT 12 [+1  
DEX 12 [+2 WIL 09 [+1  
CON 08 PER 10

Second Sight [4: After an aggravating fiasco in Spokane, Washington involving a warlock making heavy use of 'glamours', Donna has been trained in the ability to see through illusions. She receives a -1 step bonus on any skill roll to pierce an illusion, and is always entitled to a WIL feat check to pierce illusion even if the skill normally allows none.  
Code of Honor [+3: Donna talks a big game and plays herself off as cool and callous, but deep down she cares too much. Donna will not knowingly perform an act to harm someone, directly or indirectly, who she does not believe had hurt or is trying to hurt her. And if she inadvertently or through inaction causes harm to come to those she perceives as 'innocent' she must work to make it right again, even and especially when such behavior is a huge pain in the ass for her and her teammates. Note this generally applies to people she doesn't know, which is why if one of her teammates were to point out or mention this code of honor, she would hit them.  
Temper [+4: Donna cannot -- CANNOT -- stand having her skill questioned, and neither can she abide people making her out to be their inferior. When exposed to such behavior in all but the most minor way, she becomes irate and belligerent, acting without thinking, and suffers a +2 step penalty to most actions until she calms down or the offender apologizes (and she believes it). Clueless [+4: Donna is nowhere near as good at the art of seduction as she thinks she is. She keeps trying it, though, playing into her own fantasies of being the femme fatale, the erotic assassin. Nobody else on the team will tell her why she keeps failing because that's the ticket to a half-hour berating session. Donna has a +2 step penalty on all Interaction -- Seduce skill checks.

Combat Information:  
Weapon: Score: Range: Damage (O/G/A): Type:  
Unarmed 14/7/3 Personal d6s/d6+2s/d4w LI/O .45 1911A1 12/6/3 +1 6/12/40 d4+1w/d4+2w/d4m HI/O Coffee Mug 14/7/3 +1 Personal d6+2s/d6+3s/d4+1w LI+En/O

Action Check: 15+/14/7/3 Durability: 08 / 08 / 04 / 04 Actions Per Round: 2 Last Resort Points: 2

Athletics [09/4/2  
Climb 1 [10/5/2  
Jump 2 [11/5/2  
Unarmed Attack [09/4/2  
Power Martial Arts 1 [10/5/2  
Acrobatics [12/6/3  
Defensive Martial Arts 2 [14/7/3  
Dodge 2 [14/7/3  
Manipulation [12/6/3  
Lockpick 1 [13/6/3  
Modern Ranged Weapons [12/6/3  
Stealth [12/6/3  
Sneak 1 [13/6/3  
Vehicle Operation [12/6/3  
Land Vehicle (Car) 1 [13/6/3  
Stamina [08/4/2  
Endurance 1 [09/4/2  
Knowledge [12/6/3  
Computer Operation 1 [13/6/3  
Security [12/6/3  
Security Devices 2 [14/7/3  
Awareness [09/4/2  
Intuition 1 [10/5/2  
Perception 1 [10/5/2  
Deception [10/5/2  
Bluff 2 [12/6/3  
Interaction [10/5/2  
Seduce 2 [12/6/3 +2 


	4. Double Back

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

Itohiro Nakami couldn't sit still. He wasn't sure if he was elated or terrified, and he seemed to be oscillating between them ten times a second. He bopped up and down slightly in his seat, shifted his weight from his left armrest to his right armrest and back again, looked around the plane's cabin nervously for nothing in particular.

"First time flying, eh?" said the overweight balding businessman in the adjacent seat, patting him on the arm.

"Nooot exactly," said Nakami, chewing on his cheek a little.

"Well, you picked a good guy to sit next to for your first time, mister," said the bald man who clearly cared more about his own voice than Nakami's. "I've been up in the air thousands of times for my business -- I'm in sales, by the way," like Nakami gave a shit, "I probably have more flight time than half the pilots by now. So if you got any questions about anything here don't you hesitate to ask and I'll lay it all out for you. I love mentoring you newbies." He extended his sweaty-palmed hand. "Walter Mifflin, pleased to meet you."

Nakami glanced at Walter's hand but made no other motion towards it. "Charmed."

"So," said Walter as he retracted his hand but clearly missed the hint, "What takes you out to California? I've got a biiig presentation for some real important Hollywood-types in a couple days and I thought I'd get there early, you know, scope out the area, get the lay of the land. Don't want to be unprepared, plus I figured I could get in some surfing lessons on company time, you feel me?" He chuckled and elbowed Nakami in the ribs. "What about you, you into anything like that?"

"I'm not going to California," he droned in a tone of voice he hoped indicated 'I am too polite to not respond to you but am not interested in this conversation' but he doubted it would. "I'm just stopping in California on my way to Japan."

"Oh, good man, good man," said Walter like visiting Japan was some laudable thing. "You, what, visiting family or something like that?"

"Something like that."

Yeah, something like that. You know the horrible boogeyman that lived in your closet when you were five years old, the one who your dad could never find during the daytime? The one that came out at night every night and just stared at your quivering form underneath the covers? And you didn't dare to lift your blanket, to expose one square inch of your body because you knew, you KNEW that was all it took for him to each over and flay the flesh off your bones. So you just sat there with your eyes wide open, paralyzed with fear, and hoped to God you wouldn't fall asleep or he wouldn't just decide to pull the blanket off of you and rip you to shreds right there? And every single morning when you woke up you wondered how you were even alive and the only conclusion you could ever draw was that he was toying with you. My boogeyman's name was Isci ba Fan, and he's been menacing my entire extended family for as long as we've existed. The last time we tried to do something about him he killed around ten thousand of us and we rammed a STARSHIP into its FACE and we still couldn't destroy him. And ever since he's been showing up at family reunions from time to time wearing someone's peeled skin, just to let us know he's there. And all of us pretend he's a superstition because we all know he's real and he scares the living shit out of us.

And just when I'd been away from it long enough to start thinking that maybe we were all wrong, maybe Isci ba Fan was really just a superstition, I get a call from Tokyo and not only is he running around, and mentioned by name -- which by the way we never told ANYBODY -- but they've also found somebody who pulled off the blanket and looked right at him and lived to tell about it. If I was coming out to meet that person, would that count as more a 'friend of the family' thing, Walter Mifflin Who's In Sales, or would a demon who's been stalking us for as long as we've been in the solar system be close enough to count as 'family'? I could see it going either way.

The 'fasten seat belts' light clicked off and Nakami's hand instantly shot to the 'call attendant' button above him. The stewardess came by while Walter was droning on about the importance of running your sales team like a family. When she came back with his bourbon, Walter was talking about a business retreat in Aspen.

Nakami downed the shot of bourbon in one gulp and tapped the stewardess on the shoulder as she was leaving. He handed the empty shot glass back to her and said "I'm going to need a hell of a lot more of these to get where I'm going."

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 4: DOUBLE BACK ∙ ∙ ∙

JUUBAN SHOPPING CENTER, OUTSIDE SOUTH ENTRY #3 TOKYO, JAPAN FEBRUARY 20, 1995 4:15 PM

"The herald of catastrophe, I am Sailor Saturn!"

The charging daimon had totally ignored her up until she finished that sentence, at which point her head jerked to the side like a dog hearing a can opener. "YOU!" it howled as it changed its course to run towards her, "YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE YOU HAVE TO COME BACK WITH ME RIGHT NOW!" One of the thing's bright orange legs looked mangled but it ran at her with hardly a limp.

"Okay, so, this is apparently what we're doing now," said Bill as he rolled into a sitting position and worked the bolt-action on his rifle. "That thing sharp enough to cut open dai-mons?" he asked in the same way one would ask 'that thing got a V-8 in it?'

Hotaru tightened her grip and stared at the massive creature closing in at her. "Yes," she said, hoping she'd be quick enough to strike the daimon before it trampled her, or punched the weapon out of her hand, or pounded her into the sidewalk. Deep down she knew it wouldn't be the weapon that failed, it would be herself.

"Okay, that's cool." Bill raised the rifle to his shoulder again and closed one eye, but Hotaru knew bullets couldn't hurt it. Only magic could, magic like Hotaru had in the cursed Silence Glaive she held, and now people would die because there wasn't someone better to take it from her. In the middle of the street, Donna glanced behind her, saw she was no longer being followed, and skidded to a stop. The monster yelled about how Hotaru was in the wrong place, but Hotaru tuned it out. She took a deep breath, held it, pulled back her shoulder...

A gunshot echoed through the street and the daimon fell flat on its face, the chunks of metal in and on its body bending and snapping, the piledriver tearing through the concrete. It skidded, somersaulted, and then rolled to a stop fifteen feet from where Hotaru was standing.

"People often forget that being bulletproof doesn't negate the force of the impact, just the penetration," said Bill, grinning. "If your knee is wearing Kevlar and I shoot it, you may not bleed but you will fall down, ain't that right you big orange bitch? You should be clear on its left." He stood up and pulled back on the bolt again, ejecting the spent cartridge. Hotaru blinked, suprised, but she quickly walked over to the monster's left side. It looked up at her, waved its arm-stump ineffectually, tried to position its heavy piledriver arm into place to get back up again. It was still shouting about how Hotaru should come back with it as Hotaru closed her eyes and swung the blade at the creature's neck.

Before the severed head even hit the sidewalk the daimon was gone with a 'POP!' and a puff of smoke. In its place was an ordinary commercial piledriver (though dented and beaten beyond use) and, floating above it, nine glowing red gems. They resembled the one on Hotaru's chest, though none of them were so ornate or had so many points.

"Is that what pure hearts look like or is this some different kind of thing?"

Hotaru nodded. "These are the heart crystals it took out of those people. I don't know why they had this many. Before, they would go after one at a time and look for the purest."

"But, you can put them back, right? They don't turn to voodoo zombies or something and try to eat us?"

Hotaru thought about Chibi-Usa and she winced. "I can put them back. They won't wake up otherwise."

Bill rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. "All right, seems simple enough. Hey, Donna, we-- aaand she's already gone." Donna was down the street, punching two hypnotized people's lights out and rolling others off of a pile so they wouldn't get crushed or suffocated to death.

Hotaru sighed. She knew what came next. Just like the schoolkid who skins his knee or burns his hand in the same class as the creepy girl with scary healing powers, they'll be too happy to accept her help and then after it's over tell her how wierd and scary and wrong she is. And keep on telling her that until the next time they needed her. Or they could just layer her with false praise about how normal and totally not-scary she is and then ask the school to teach a new class as soon as her back was turned.

Or they could take her back to wherever fake FBI agents come from and do to her what they were going to do to ET, that remained a possibility.

"So, how come you didn't tell us you were," he turned around to face her and his eyes went wide, "oh son of a bitch is there some kind of CONVENTION in town?"

∙

Luckily for Phil and Nadine -- and the citizens of Tokyo -- the two women, the herald and the elegant, Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, knew what they were doing. And 'what they were doing' involved, in great part, firing off glowing blasts of energy at things. 'Uranus' threw it and yelled 'world shaking!' and 'Neptune' braced herself like her arm was an artillery piece and shouted 'deep submerge!' before she fired it off, but they both seemed to work the same way. And they appeared very suited to blowing the Hell out of four-armed flame monsters, after two or three hits the thing was reduced to what appeared to be a blowtorch.

Most everyone had cleared out by that time, save for the people it had grabbed and the two people who were dragging the others into a pile. All four of them ran towards the same area, but the two planet-sailors were in better shape and a lot faster than Phil and Nadine were. 'Neptune' was on the ground checking vital signs, and 'Uranus' had one of the two draggers up against the wall with her arm across his neck, shouting questions he wasn't answering.

Nadine immediately dropped to the ground and went to work, performing CPR on a woman with a gash in her head who looked about thirty. 'Neptune' looked a bit suprised but didn't stop her. Phil paused a second, wondered if there could ever possibly be a way he could talk to the two of them and arrive at this question naturally without it being the most awkward thing in the world. He came to the conclusion he could not.

"So, I don't suppose either of you know a girl named Tomoe Hotaru?" Uranus turned to him slowly, with a look equal parts confusion and wrath, like a man who goes to the supermarket and unexpectedly runs into the person who killed his family. "Little girl, about yay tall, dark purple eyes, kind of sickly?"

Uranus blinked and spoke in English slowly and deliberately. "Right now, I want you to repeat the phrase, 'I am actuely aware of the fact that it's not working, William.'"

Phil balked. "How on Earth could you have heard that? Who are you?" Outside, he heard gunfire.

Uranus looked back at the man she had pinned to the wall and punched him hard in the stomach, lifting her arm off and letting him slide to the floor. She spun back to Philip and extended a finger, her form partially silhouetted by the light coming from the glass entryway behind her. "You look a lot more talkative than your friend here was," she pointed back towards the man in a heap on the ground, "and for your sake I hope you are because I am not going to give you a whole lot of time to tell me where these daimons came from, and what they're doing, and what you want with Hotaru." Her hand went toward a sword at her waist that Phil swore wasn't there a second ago. "So you had better start talking!"

Phil started to say something, then his eyes went wide and he lost his train of thought. He stammered out "What, I, I don't even know what you're talking about, Dr. Tomoe is the one who was summoning demons, I wasn't--"

"Don't you play goddamned games with me!" she snarled, "You were at Mugen, you were part of Tomoe's project, you were there on Thursday and now you've got something to do with this!"

"Children!" shouted Nadine as she pressed down on the woman's chest. "People are about to die because me and 'Sailor Neptune' over here can only administer CPR one at a time and nobody's checking to see if they're breathing!"

Phil swallowed nervously and kneeled down, checking the pulse and breathing of a man while never taking his eyes off the angry woman.

"She's right, you know," said Neptune, and Uranus rolled her eyes and got down on the floor as well. There were a good sixteen people there at least, and while Neptune and Nadine tried to resuscitate two of them Uranus and Phil went through the others one by one. Outside they heard crashing and squealing noises, likely as people in their cars tried to flee, and Uranus started to turn around toward their source.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" shouted Phil, then when Uranus looked back towards him, he repeated, "I don't know what you're talking about," in a too-calm voice. "I was never part of any project involving Dr. Tomoe. My name is Dr. Philip Akens," he stopped talking to listen for a man's breath, "I'm a professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. A colleague of mine at Tokyo University asked me to come here," another pause for breathing, then a crawl to another person, "and investigate something for him. We've only been here less than a week and we haven't seen Dr. Tomoe in that time."

"You're lying to me." She stopped and put her ear to a young man's mouth. "I heard you at the Mugen Academy when you were trying to summon the Silence. You must have dropped something or broken something -- no, no, I checked him already -- before the ritual was completed, and now you're using..." Pause. This one wasn't breathing. She held his nose and blew into his mouth, then pressed in on his sternum. "...now you're using these daimons to get yourselves back up to speed and you want to find Hotaru because she can get the summoning started again."

There were more noises of calamity from outside, and if Uranus had been listening very closely to the noise out there and not listening for breathing from a young Japanese man, she would have heard a woman's voice she recognized yelling, "SHIT! SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!"

"You're right," said Phillip, his eyes wide and locked on hers, "I am lying to you. I'm an FBI agent and I don't need you to tell me where Tomoe Hotaru is because she's already in FBI custody." Pause, listen, take pulse. "She's a material witness to these events and she told us that two people matching your description tried to kill her. I wanted to know if it was really you. It looks like it is."

"You have no idea what you're dealing with," said Haruka, refusing to break his gaze even when she leaned in to exhale in the young man's mouth. "Tomoe Hotaru is dangerous. She's destined to bring about the end of the world and there is nothing the FBI can do to stop her. Keeping her in your custody only delays the inevitable, it won't stop it."

"Well if you have a problem with that, Miss... Uranus, you should take it up with the Prime Minister or with William Sessions," he paused, waiting for a spark of recognition, "...the director of the FBI. Because as of now this entire incident is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Miss Tomoe will be on a plane to Quantico within the hour."

"So she's not on one yet?" said Neptune as the person underneath her coughed and returned to consciousness.

"Who's not on a what yet?" asked the old man she had just resuscitated.

"Nobody's not on an anything yet," responded Nadine, "You're just hallucinating. Go back to sleep until the paramedics arrive."

"Oh. Okay?" The old man laid down and closed his eyes.

"Nobody's called the paramedics," said Haruka. "For the same reason nobody called the police the last three times this happened. Nobody's going to even remember this happened once they get a couple blocks away."

"And you said that Hotaru will be on a plane in less than an hour," Neptune added, "That means she's not on one now. She's still at the airport, isn't she?"

Neptune and Phil looked at each other for a moment. Phil broke into a run down the now-deserted mall toward the eastern exit, and Neptune sprinted behind him. Uranus and Nadine shared the same meaningful look, then each looked down at their patient and started performing CPR like it was an Olympic event, breath-breath-pushpushpushpushpush with mad urgency and speed. Uranus's patient coughed first and before he could even ask what was going on she had clapped her hands in the air, shouted "YES!", and jumped over him to sprint off down the mall's length.

Phil sauntered back once she was gone. "I'm gonna find a pay phone to call 911. Well, it's 119 here, but you know."

"Oh, you're a real sweetheart. What was that 'FBI' business all about? I don't think magical warriors care about any governmental agency."

Phil shrugged. "I think it worked out all right, all things considered. I just needed her to keep talking to me without thinking I was one of the official bad guys and thus okay for her to blast, and without turning around. The fact I sent her off on a wild goose chase when she's trying to kill the Tomoe girl is an added plus."

Nadine looked confused, and so did the woman in her lap. "Why couldn't she turn around?"

Phil arched an eyebrow. "You weren't looking out the windows behind her? You didn't see our van drive by with Bill and his rifle on the back fender, then drive back in the other direction, then see Donna running from some orange monster I guess she hit with the van? Hotaru is probably with them, and if they knew that we couldn't stop them. Thank God I got them to leave the building on the other side."

"William Sessions isn't the director of the FBI any more," said the woman with the head wound. "It's a man named Louis Freeh now."

Nadine fixed her with a stern glare. "Ma'am, the FBI does not appreciate nitpickers."

∙ ∙ ∙

Uranus and Neptune did manage to make it to the airport within an hour, though they were not helped by the fact that Uranus's car --

A pristine canary-yellow 1967 Toyota 2000GT open-top, one of only two models ever produced, a vehicle once driven (albiet briefly) by James Bond himself, Mr. Sean Connery for the film "You Only Live Twice", a vehicle into which Tenou Haruka has poured countless hours of time and gallons of sweat modifying, tweaking, and enhancing to be the most flawless, the most ruthless racing machine ever to cast its shadow on the quarter-mile...

-- had been stolen. Uranus was nearly apopleptic with rage upon discovering this and had Neptune not been there to calm her down it's possible she would have killed the next person she saw with her bare hands. Not precisely likely, but certainly possible. Lacking automotive transportation, and with public transportation service during a mass youma attack spotty at best, they ran. When they arrived at the Narita airport, they did not find a team of FBI agents ready to load Tomoe Hotaru onto a plane back to Quantico, Virginia. And in the time it took them to get there Michiru remembered from 'Silence of the Lambs' that Quantico was where the FBI training academy was, not its headquarters.

What they did find was four more of the new-model daimons, ten feet tall and made out of very hazardous objects. They also found Tuxedo Mask running as fast as he could in circles around the daimons -- who were bumping into each other at least as much as they were attacking him -- and on his shoulders, Sailor Chibi-Moon firing a sustained Pink Sugar Heart Attack. An attack that, she learned within the past hour, will actually kill a daimon if it's kept up for around fifteen to twenty minutes, a situation that may arise when Tuxedo Kamen's run out of whatever magical ammunition propels those roses around and there are no other Sailor Senshi in sight.

Uranus and Neptune, of course, will take any opportunity to swoop in in the nick of time and save someone, no matter why they were there in the first place.

∙ ∙ ∙

When the daimon turned back into the power transformer that spawned it and the nimbus of electrical interference around it vanished, it left behind five heart crystals and a whole host of problems. Luckily for them, heart crystals won't go back into a person they didn't originate in; THAT would have been a nightmare to figure out otherwise. They'd wanted to get Sailor Jupiter, or just Makoto by that point, into a bed with some very powerful painkillers in her bloodstream; but they couldn't move her, they couldn't get into the cabinet with the morphine, Ami wasn't sure she could dose Makoto without killing her, and they had very pressing matters competing for their attention. In the end they just had to leave a note on Makoto (who was mercifully unconscious at this time) that said "Broken leg, cast mislaid -- EXTREME PAIN, recommend opiates." At the bottom Ami tried to forge her mother's signature but they doubted anyone would buy it.

The pressing matter vying for their attention was the fact that, according to the now-fully-functional Mercury Computer, the Juuban ward of Tokyo was under a full-scale daimon assault. Between twenty and thirty -- the readings couldn't get a precise lock on some ranges -- were active on the surface, almost all of them moving towards, away from, or around in the mall or the airport. They all grimaced, and Usagi swore like nobody knew she was capable of doing, but they left the hospital, closed in on the nearest energy signature, and went to work.

They soon discovered that they were not the only ones fighting the youma, others were vanishing off the radar without their help. They could only guess it was Uranus and Neptune, and perhaps Tuxedo Mask, because they sure weren't swooping in in the nick of time to rescue the Guardian Senshi's asses. But they knew they had most of the firepower, and they couldn't rely on someone else to do the job for them, which is why it was so bad when they started running out of ammo.

The Senshi did know, academically, that their attacks could only be used a limited number of times before the magic ran dry and they needed to recharge. Venus had been the one to test it, she just went into the park at around 3 AM and shot at a tree stump until no more Crescent Beams would come out. But she was able to fire about twenty times before she ran out, and that limit was so high it had just never really come up in a combat situation until today.

Today's daimons, in addition to their great numbers, larger size, and unusual behaviors, share other characteristics. All of them are made out of items that were extremely dangerous -- industrial equipment, lawnmowers, that sort of thing. And they were all tougher. Not exponentially tougher, not enough that their attacks did no damage and they knew that Sailor Moon would soon get her powers upgraded as a result, but enough that it took two or three times as much fire to take one down, assuming no misses or blocked shots. Thank God that none of them had the same reactive defense as the power-transformer-daimon did or they would be dead eight times over.

Venus ran out of ammo first, which is to be expected when you're firing Crescent Beams out of both hands like Chow-Yun Fat while holding a toothpick in your mouth. Not wanting to use a short-range chain to engage daimons that were very often made of sharp, whirly things, she ran off to the mall to see if she could meet up with Uranus and Neptune. They were better about conserving their shots after that as they hit daimon after daimon on a jagged path leading roughly toward the Juuban Shopping Center. Moon ran out of power next; apparently the increased effectiveness of her Spiral Heart Attack meant she could use it less times in total. She hung behind to put the heart crystals back in the people that had been drained and let Mercury and Mars go on ahead to the next encounter. Mars estimated that each of them had two shots remaining, three at the most, when they closed in on the latest daimon.

Mars peeked around the corner to get a glimpse of the thing. It was facing her but if it saw her peeking from behind the building she didn't care, and it walked down the sidewalk with three Mugens as if it were just strolling to the corner store to pick up a jug of milk.

Its body was a dull rust color, which made sense as it appeared to be made out of old, rusted metal. Its legs were just metal cylinders, its arms had long lag bolts that looked to take the place of biceps. Its right hand was two steamshovel-scoops that clacked together, it's left hand was a rivet gun. Rivets ran up and down its torso and legs, stained with even deeper patches of rust. Mars ducked behind the corner to talk to Mercury.

"Looks like it was made out of a rivet gun. Metal body, probably got ranged attacks. Coming away from the mall, so I guess it must have gathered its quota of hearts."

Mercury tapped her temple to switch the display on her visor. "Another two vanished at the mall itself, there's just two left. About five at the airport, and they don't appear to be moving."

"If this thing is made of metal, it should crack if you freeze it and then I heat up the same spot, right?"

"Other way around, actually. Heating metal up and then freezing it causes stress fractures." Mercury paused. "That's if it follows the same rules as normal metal. It might not."

Mars exhaled sharply. "Worth a shot anyway. You ready?"

Mercury nodded. "Ready. On three."

They counted to three and each of them rolled out from behind the corner, Mercury kneeling and Mars standing behind her. Mars shouted "Mars Flame Sniper!" and shot the daimon perfectly in the center of the chest, heating the metal to a far more bright shade of reddish-orange. Mercury got as far as "Shine Aqua" when the short, overweight Mugen jumped at them and kicked her in the face with both feet.

The back of Mercury's head collided with Mars's legs and sent the both of them toppling backwards, arms flailing wildly. Mercury didn't fire off her attack when she was flailing her arms like this and thank the Silver Millennium for small favors. The youma shouted "IT'S TOO LATE NOW! YOU DIDN'T SHOW UP EARLY ENOUGH!" and it started to run, its big metal legs clanking and straining. It wasn't running away from them, but it wasn't exactly running towards them; it seemed to just be trying to go around them.

Mars planted her palms on the sidewalk on either side of her head and kicked her way upwards, connecting with the Mugen's chest with two high-heels. He staggered and reeled but did not topple, at least until Mercury kicked the ankles out from under him. Mars got to her feet and lunged forward, arm outstretched, clotheslining the second Mugen across the throat. She grabbed his wrist and spun him so that he was in front of her and she had his arm twisted behind his back, gave it a good yank upward, then kicked him in the small of the back (no heel, she didn't want to paralyze him) and sent him toppling into the third Mugen, causing them both to tumble to the sidewalk. Mercury rolled to the side and rose to a crouch; had she got up any faster, she likely would have been decapitated by the large metal bolt that whizzed over her and grazed her hair. It impacted the building behind her with a heavy THUNK. The monster crowed "CAN'T STOP ME ANY MORE!" and fired again, Mars easily ducked out of the way.

Neither one of them had to say "Rivet guns don't even work that way," it was just assumed.

"It's going for the subway entrance!" shouted Mars, and it appeared to be even though it must have passed five such entrances already on its walk back from its harvest. "Stop it!"

Mercury thought for a split-second she could nail the daimon from here, but thought better of it. She was seeing it from the side now and soon from the back, and neither angle let her see the glowing hot area Mars had made with her attack, hitting somewhere else may waste energy they cannot afford to waste. Instead she ran toward the subway station in a full sprint, hoping her faster pace could make up for the daimon's longer legs. The monster fired its rivet gun at her as she closed the distance, but missed wildly every time, apparently it was terrible at leading its shots. Mars ran close behind her.

The daimon had enough of a head start and enough momentum to make it to its target first, and it leapt into the open stairwell like Arnold Shwarzenegger leaping towards the landing strut of a helicopter. It hit the ground with a horrible CRASH and more pierceing metal-on-metal screeching, and the people in the station (who apparently did not notice the monsters outside until just now) screamed and fled as the monster rose to its feet.

Mercury got to the stairwell next and she leapt onto the handrail in the center and slid down it -- something that she's always wanted to do, truth be told. She came in to find the monster unable to stand fully under the low ceiling of the subway staion and scrabbling on its hands and knees to get to the platform. "TOO LATE! ALREADY DONE! TOO LATE!" it crowed.

Now that it was slowed to crawling, Mercury was easily able to circle around it, jump over the turnstile (something that she really couldn't be blamed for here) and cut off its path. "ShineAquaILLUSION!" she shouted, not just as if it was all one word but all one syllable, and shot a blast of frost directly into the glowing red area on its chest.

There was a hissing, a groaning, a crackling noise like ice cubes dropped into warm water, and then a great SNAP as the area of its chest cracked and fissured. It made a noise that could be a howl of pain, and fired rivets at Mercury in a blind spray, but it did not die, turn back into a rivet gun, and release the heart crystals it had stolen.

The monster pushed itself backward onto its rear, with its knees in front of its chest, and fired repeatedly at the toll station Mercury had ducked behind. It seemed to have abandoned its triumphant tone and was now shouting "GO AWAY! YOU AREN'T DOING ANYTHING!" like all the others. Mercury winced a little every time she felt the dull impact of a rivet hitting the tollbooth, and put her hands above her head to shield her from shards of broken glass.

Mars shouted "Mars Flame Sniper!" from the other side of the station and Mercury heard a 'whoosh' of heat and flame. She counted to five, the time she estimated it would take for the monster to turn around, then stood up from behind her cover and delivered a Shine Aqua Illusion right into the back of the creature's glowing red head. It snapped, it crackled, and then it popped, leaving behind an old, rusty rivet gun and a floating array of heart crystals that almost looked like something Alexander Calder would make.

Mercury tapped her temple again; the visor was cracked from when the Mugen kicked it bu could still display information pretty well. "Okay, that looks like the last of them in the area. There's one more by the mall -- oh, no, it's gone now too. Still four at the airport, I think someone is keeping them contained."

"That's good," Mars panted, more due to anxiety than exertion, "because I think that was my last shot. Sailor Mercury?"

"Yes?"

"I think I'm starting to hate my job."

∙

Hotaru spun on one heel as Bill brought the rifle to his shoulder. Behind here were not one, but TWO more daimons, walking towards them as if they were just out for an afternoon stroll. Five humans, obviously under the Pharaoh's control, walked with them; they bumped into each other occasionally but didn't look like they acknowledged each other's presence. One of the daimons was a thing of matte black and galvanized steel, with round, toothed blades about two feet wide protruding from each shoulder and replacing her left hand; Hotaru guessed this one was made of a circular saw. The other was dark blue with three or four upward-pointing, foot-long metal spikes ringing her knees, hips, elbows and shoulders. Hotaru wasn't sure about that one but if pressed she might guess it was some kind of garden implement.

"Duck!" shouted Bill, and she did, and when he squeezed the trigger he missed his target by a country mile. Neither daimon, nor the humans below them, seemed to notice. He swore, yanked back on the bolt, and fired again; this time he was rewarded with a spark from the saw-daimon's thigh area, a loud 'KA-PWINGG!', and an instant reaction from the daimon and two of the humans.

"YOU'RE AN OBSTRUCTION! YOU ARE DELAYING THINGS!" shouted the saw-daimon, and it ran at its attacker. The two men with her said nothing, they just charged. Their legs were shorter than the ten-foot daimon's, and they lagged behind it. And behind them, the pointy-daimon and the other three humans sauntered forward as if nothing unusual had occurred.

Bill fumbled with the bolt again and fired the last round in the magazine, the spark told him he'd connected right with her knee and she showed no signs of slowing down or falling. "Damn it, that doesn't negate the force of the impact!" he shouted, and grabbed into his pockets for more ammo.

"GO AWAY! STOP SLOWING THINGS DOWN!" it yelled, and it swung its left arm toward them, detaching the saw blade and flinging it toward Bill and Hotaru. Hotaru started to bring the Silence Glaive up to block it or slice it away, but she knew she'd be too late, she wasn't strong enough or fast enough to get the blade up in time.

When the incoming sawblade was split into two pieces by a vaguely spiral-shaped cut down its middle and wobbled harmlessly to the ground, it actually took Hotaru a second to realize that she'd sliced it out of midair. Behind her, Bill pulled out a fistful of ammunition and swore when he realized he'd grabbed the wrong caliber of ammo. He dropped the rifle to the ground and pulled his revolver out of his jacket.

The daimon reached back and pulled a blade off its shoulder to replace the one it had fired, and then before it could fire that one off it had closed to melee range. It swung its saw-arm downward towards Hotaru's head, Hotaru spun and sidestepped it easily. Hotaru brought her glaive around as she spun and aimed it at the creature's neck, the creature leaned back and swatted at the weapon's shaft with her elbow, sending it harmlessly over her face.

Hotaru wasn't thinking about what she was going to do, she was more concerned with what she just did. The saw came at her low and horizontal, she back-flipped over it and swung again at the monster's chest. She didn't know how she was this skilled, how Tomoe Hotaru could ever be this good at anything. The monster grabbed the glaive right below the blade and held on to it, Hotaru thrust it forward again and again, going for the creature's face, making it devote its efforts to deflecting her attacks. She decided that it couldn't really be Hotaru Tomoe doing this, but Sailor Saturn, the same way she must have been in control when she fought the Pharaoh. The monster brought its saw down from overhead to slice the haft of her glaive in half, she dashed toward the creature, leaving no space for it to cut. Sailor Saturn was a warrior of the Silver Millennium, a skilled combatant, a champion, and Tomoe Hotaru was just a weak, frail girl who couldn't run fifty meters without collapsing into a coughing fit. She darted between its black-and-steel legs and twisted her weapon to wrench it from the creature's grasp, then dragged it behind her to hack a deep gash in the daimon's groin area -- or what would be a groin if it wasn't a monster made out of a circular saw. Hotaru rolled to her feet, one hand on her weapon and one hand splayed out on the sidewalk for balance, breath already ragged and wheezy, and decided to just let go and let Sailor Saturn handle things completely.

That's why when the monster spun to face her, pinkish ooze leaking out of its lower body, it was able to backhand her into a wall without her dodging it.

Bill had circled around them and was now standing in the middle of the street with his revolver at the ready. Hotaru was moving almost too fast for him to track, and he didn't want to shoot the monster and risk hitting her, especially when the monster seemed to be totally immune to bullets. The two people with the monster, a man and a woman he did not know to refer to as "Mugens", had made no attempt to attack Hotaru when she was engaged in combat with the saw-monster, but Hotaru had gone through the monster's legs and now come out on the side they were on and he didn't think they were up to something good. He knew there were mind-control demons about and these people were obviously under its influence, so he couldn't kill them, but getting into close combat with them right next to a gigantic sawblade without being a Crazy Schoolgirl Scythe Ninja like Hotaru apparently was was a real bad idea. He grimaced and shot the closer one -- the woman -- in the thigh, hopefully not a fatal area, and luckily for him both of them turned towards him but the monster didn't.

Hotaru gasped, the wind knocked out of her, and when she dove downward to avoid the followup attack from the saw she left a few purple hairs stuck to its blade. So, Sailor Saturn wasn't taking control. Something else. She swung her weapon at the creature's arm to hack it off, but it pulled back and upwards to get out of the way. Hotaru rolled forward to her feet before the creature could manage a followup attack. She could swing a weapon, she could fight, she could dodge and leap and she didn't even have to be thinking about it, but she had to be trying to do it, there wasn't someone else there to do all the work. The monster advanced, swung the saw back and forth at her, she couldn't get a good swing in for fear her weapon would be cut in half. She leapt backwards out of the way of each swing, thrusting over the saw-arm at the creature's face but her attacks were easily swatted away.

In the middle of the street Bill brought the butt of his revolver into the man's nose, sending blood everywhere and kneeing him in the stomach as he went down. The woman delivered a roundhouse kick with her shot-up leg over her comrade's fallen body; it connected with Bill's cheek and she let out a yelp of pain as he went tumbling backwards to the asphalt. He tried to scramble backwards but he was too slow and the woman jumped on him, knees digging into his chest, hands raining down blows on his face. He tried punching her in the head several times but he didn't have the angle to put any force behind the punch. His vision starting to blur from weak -- but repeated -- blows to the head, he stuck out his thumb, reached up to her leg, and jammed it into the bullet wound he'd just inflicted. She shrieked, her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went limp and fell off of him. Truth be told he felt really bad about doing that, but supposed that if mind-control demons don't discriminate based on gender then neither could he.

The blue spike-daimon, meanwhile, had ambled up the last few blocks, waiting at all the crosswalks even though there was no pedestrian or vehicular traffic and was now right behind Hotaru and the saw-creature, waiting to cross the street to go to the mall. If it or the people with it noticed Hotaru and the other monster were there, they did not act on that information.

It must be like riding a bike, Hotaru decided as she rolled out of the way of another swing. Her breath was now so loud in her ears she could barely hear the monster's shouted complaints, and her chest hurt every time she exhaled. She swung at chest-level and grazed it, opening a thin gash across its chest that oozed more odd-colored goop. She jumped backwards in a full backflip to avoid the counter-thrust, and when she landed she coughed deep and heavy. It was no magical ability granted by another, it was a skill she'd always had, something she may not be aware of but could never truly forget. And unfortunately, it did not come with magical endurance or stamina, or if it did not enough. Her lungs burned, her head ached, her vision was getting blurry, she just couldn't breathe. She shifted her weight forward to go on the offensive, swinging and thrusting at the creature's chest and face, it kept its arms back to avoid having them cut off and ducked and dodged each attack. Hotaru's arms sagged, her shoulders drooped, and even the gossamer-light Silence Glaive felt heavy in her hands. She swung for the monster's knee with her hands at the very end of the haft, for maximum range, but it appeared to be stepping easily out of the way and swinging back at her overextended body with an attack she wouldn't be able to dodge. She coughed again, a deep baritone that sounded like she was trying to expel her own lung tissue, and she pitched forward faster than the daimon had expected.

The daimon fell backwards to the sidewalk, right leg severed at the knee and left leg severed at the thigh. It flailed its arms wildly and shouted "STOP DELAYING THINGS! YOU ARE DELAYING THINGS!" Bill took a second to judge how far it's arms would go, waited for it to swing the saw downwards, then jumped next to the creature's head, put the barrel of his gun in its eye, and fired three times. Pink ooze sprayed from the back of its head, it gurgled for a split-second and then reverted to the Black and Decker circular saw it had spawned from.

Bill fell to his knees, panting, though not as bad as Hotaru. "That was incredible," he said. "You saved my life."

Hotaru tried to say something but it was lost in a ten-second coughing fit.

"Are you going to be okay?" Hotaru shook her head. Bill glanced up at the blue spike-monster, walking by as if it didn't notice them. "There's one more of them. Think you can do that again?" Again, she shook her head in the negative. Then she thought for a couple seconds, and beckoned Bill to come in closer, and in as soft a voice as she could manage she rasped the plan in his ear.

Bill nodded, smiled, and picked her up in his arms like he had done before, though she was bigger and heavier now. He carried her across the street and set her down on a bench behind the spike-monster, she curled up around her weapon for support and held it out away from her. Bill took five big steps back, then pointed his arm at the blade of Hotaru's weapon and closed one eye, he took a couple slight steps to the right to line himself up. Then he held up his pistol and shot the daimon in the back.

As predicted, the daimon turned around towards the source of the attack, but the humans didn't because they hadn't seen it. The blue thing shouted "SHUT UP! GO AWAY! YOU AREN'T DOING ANYTHING!" and ran full-sprint at Bill; it didn't even slow down to avoid Hotaru's blade and managed to slice itself in half at the waist with its own momentum. Before the top half of it even hit the ground, it had turned back into something Bill would have guessed was a Garden Weasel.

While this was going on, a car came from around the corner, the first car they had seen in a couple minutes that really felt like a few hours. It was a convertible, canary-yellow, with an engine that sounded like it preyed on and devoured lesser engines. Behind the wheel was none other than Donna Truitt. She pulled the car to a squealing, smoking stop in front of Bill and Hotaru.

"One, gimme your inhaler," said Bill brusquely, "Two, where the hell have you been, and three, where did you get that car?"

"One, here." Donna reached into her pocket and produced a white albuterol inhaler, which she passed to Bill, who passed it to Hotaru. Hotaru shook it up, pressed the trigger, and inhaled deeply, immediately coughing almost all of the medicine out without effect. "Two, I went to take care of those hypno-assholes, then I figured I needed to get us another set of wheels. Which leads into three, some asshole had this thing parked across two spaces with the top down and one of those push-button ignitions like they have on racecars instead of keys. Nobody who would do that deserves to have this car. Why, what the hell have you been doing?"

"Hotaru just had to kill two more of those damn things, that's what we've been doing!"

Donna's eyes went a bit wider and she leaned forward to look past Bill at Hotaru. "What, seriously?"

Hotaru nodded meekly, then pointed up at Bill. "He helped," she rasped.

"I finished one off after you hacked off its legs and I poked another one so you could slice it in half. You were twirling about with a scythe and doing, doing shit like I've never seen before!"

"Damn, Miss Tomoe." Donna whistled. "Well, looks like I owe Nakami an apology."

∙ ∙ ∙

And what of Tsukino Shingo? School is out because it's Sunday and with so many teachers affected by the Mugen incident they think they may not reopen on Monday, and good riddance says Shingo. His obnoxious big sister Usagi was in the hospital; he was worried for a while but he knew nothing bad could ever happen to her, not really, and he was right. His bratty little cousin Chibi-Usa, or at least the one they said was his cousin but he sure as hell didn't see no aunt and uncle, was staying with Usagi's bug-ugly boyfriend. That dumb cat was nowhere to be found.

Mom and Dad had gone to the hospital to visit Usagi, and Shingo didn't come because they were worried he might still have the flu and pass it on to the patients, even though that totally cleared up like a week ago. He loved his sister and all, and he'd want to visit her eventually, but he figured letting her stew a while might teach her to take so long in the bathroom every morning.

And Shingo knew that Mom and Dad would be so relieved and overjoyed that their daughter was safe and sound that they wouldn't be able to be unkind to any of their kids, which was why Shingo was now sitting on the couch in his "Gatchaman" underpants and nothing else, eating strawberry ice cream straight out of the carton and watching cartoons at maximum volume. Shingo isn't a horrible kid, not really, but he figures these kinds of opportunities only come along once in a great while and when they do you've got to sieze the living crap out of them.

When the show gets interrupted by a breaking news bulletin, Shingo doesn't even stop to hear about bizarre attacks happening all across the Juuban district, he just shouts "BORING!" and flips through the channels at about five per second. He eventually settles on a badly-dubbed kung fu movie where a Bruce Lee impersonator kicks people in the face a whole bunch of times.

Yes, right now it's a pretty damn good time to be Tsukino Shingo.

∙ ∙ ∙

The three of them working together managed to get the heart crystals back to their owners in rather short order; when they came to and asked what happened they were brushed off with an authoritative "FBI business, that's what." Philip came out of the mall before they were done and it was a good thing too, because he told Bill and Donna that they didn't have a hotel room any more and all of their stuff was in the van Donna just wrecked. Fingers were pointed, accusations were raised, names were called.

Luckily the one suitcase they could salvage before the paramedics arrived (to ask questions about why they were digging through a car wreck) was Bill's; he wore the biggest clothes and the others would look stupid in them but they would fit inside them, and it also contained an M16, 5.56mm ammunition for it and 7.62mm Warsaw Pact ammo for the Mosin-Nagant. Nobody asked how the Hell he got that through airport security because nobody really wanted to know.

Hotaru was very suprised by how little they seemed to care that she was Sailor Saturn. It wasn't just that they didn't care, but that they couldn't understand why this information would change their situation at all. Nadine came out and didn't recognize her until Bill spelled out that it was Hotaru, and that quote "She's apparently Sailor Saturn."

Nadine had nodded back toward the shopping mall and said "Well, we just met Uranus and Neptune in there. They were the ones trying to kill her so we sent 'em off to the airport to get them out of our hair."

And then they were back to yelling at each other about wrecking the car, or leaving their cell phone in the car, or not telling anyone they'd cancelled the hotel room. Hotaru started to smile, but she couldn't really articulate why -- she didn't think she should be smiling -- and suppressed it.

Once in the car, whizzing all too fast down the road, they'd started to confer. The further they went, the more traffic there was as they got away from the daimon rampage area, and Donna actually slowed down and went with the flow rather than darting from lane to lane and blazing through extremely orange lights. She recognized this car was a treasure and she shouldn't put it in danger.

Bill relayed the events of the attack at the hospital, and Phil repeated what Uranus and Neptune said about the daimons bringing the summoning ritual back up to speed and Hotaru being key to this. Donna pointed out how the daimon had charged Hotaru as soon as she said the words "I am Sailor Saturn". Hotaru told them that Phraoh 90 wasn't defeated, just delayed, and that he could restart his summoning from another location if he had to as most of the work was already done. She forgot to say that there was nothing they could do and she did not say this in the form of a morose sigh.

After a bit more conferral, they agreed the best course of action to find where Pharaoh 90 would try to re-establish his summoning site, and how to push him back permanently, would be to return to the Tomoe household. For the second time that week they backed someone else's car into the Tomoes' empty driveway, though this time their vehicle was much, much nicer than the first.

"Sorry again about breaking into here before," said Dr. Neary, leaning over to lock her door after she closed it even though it made no difference.

"Hey, the doors were unlocked, that's not breaking in," said Donna as she needlessly jumped out of the driver's seat rather than open the door. "And it looked like you hadn't been in in a while -- car was gone, lights were burned out..."

"The living room lights?" asked Hotaru, still in her Sailor Saturn getup until she found some clothes. "Did you try the switch over by the kitchen? The wiring is all wierd, if both switches aren't up the lights won't go on."

Donna looked defensive and mumbled "The lights could have been burned out..."

Nadine chuckled and shook her head. She gave the doorknob an exploratory shake, finding it was again unlocked, she swung the door open on the house's darkened interior. "Okay, we don't have a lot of room in the car, so--" and someone lurking beside the doorway kicked her in the stomach before she could finish that thought. She staggered forward and her assailant brought a knee to her face, grabbed her by the hair, yanked her upward and spun her around while she was disoriented. He was a Japanese man in sunglasses and a black suit & tie, he held one arm around Nadine's neck and put the other over her shoulder to point a black Beretta at the other four; he was using her as a human shield.

"This is a crime scene!" he shouted in not-quite-perfect English. Nadine blinked and shook her head a few times, her lip already starting to swell. "It's under government control! You're criminal tresspassers interfering with government agents! You all need to--" and that was when Nadine returned the 'interrupted mid-sentence' favor by pitching her body to the right and smashing his elbow into the doorframe. His hand spasmed and pulled the trigger but all he hit was a bush in the front yard. His other arm went slightly slack and Nadine used the opportunity to shift forward and get enough leverage to elbow him in the stomach. He grunted in pain but did not fall, however by that time Bill had wrenched the gun out of his hands and Donna had grabbed his other wrist and pulled it away from Nadine's neck. Nadine ducked underneath it and Donna kicked the man square in the chest, sending him on his ass on the living-room carpet.

Donna pulled her own pistol, a bulky silver .45, and leveled it at the man's head before he could pick up. "Bad day to be on duty, G-Man," Bill helpfully added as he stepped in around her with the G-Man's gun.

From the other side of the room they heard a toilet flush, then a door open. Silhouetted in a column of light from the bathroom was another man wearing the same outfit as the man on the floor. He looked at his parter laying on the floor, looked at the red-headed American holding his partner's gun, looked at the dark-haired woman pointing her gun at his partner's head, looked back at his partner, and quickly closed the door.

"That door's thin and that bathroom's small," Donna shouted. "He's got a lot better chance of guessing where you're standing than you have of guessing where he's standing!" After a few seconds, the door clicked open again and the man sheepishly walked out, hands in the air; Bill grabbed him and gave him a very rough patting-down. "Are there any more of you in the house?" Donna asked the man on the floor, and he quickly shook his head 'no'.

Nadine stepped over the G-man, holding her hand over her face, and walked over to the kitchen to get some ice; on the way, she flipped the wall switch and flooded the room with light. Phil squeezed through the doorway past Donna with a muttered "excuse me" and Hotaru followed soon after. Phil immediately broke for the basement and once Hotaru saw what he was doing she went up the stairs to scope out the second floor.

"The next thing I was going to do was make sure he wasn't LYING about there being no other guys in the house, in case anyone was wondering!" Donna shouted. Nobody responded.

Bill and Donna corralled the two agents into the center of the room and set about finding some way to restrain them. Phil came back up from the basement stairs and shook his head. "No good. Place is cleaned out -- even took the Faraday cage off the walls." He leaned into the banister and shouted upwards, "How's the second story look?"

"They tore my room apart!" cried Hotaru. "They ripped open the bed, they pulled out all the dresser drawers, they even... My lamp collection is gone!" She was on the verge of tears by that point. She loved her antique lamp collection, and the fact that someone would just take it away from her like that crushed her.

"All right, G-Man," said Bill as Donna started wrapping their hands with the phone cord, "Start talking. Who are you working for, what are you doing here, and where'd the lamp collection go?"

"We're with the Public Security Invgestigation Agency on a joint task force and we're here because foreign terrorists like you have been using this house as a meeting ground," he said with a confident sneer. "And I'm not going to tell you where we took your devices but it won't matter anyway because you won't be on the loose for much longer. We're closing in on your associates and before too long the noose will tighten on you as well."

Bill sighed. "I didn't ask you to feed me a line, I asked you to tell me where you took the stuff from this house. Tell me, right now, or something bad is going to happen to you."

"Do your worst!" snapped the man on the floor with his hands and feet bound with phone and power cables, "I can resist any torture you can inflict!"

"Okay," Bill said, and shot the man in the shin. He yelped, and he moaned, and he hissed through his gritted teeth, and he pounded his head against the wall, and he in general made a huge production about how much pain he was heroically resisting, but he didn't start talking.

Bill turned to look at the other G-man sitting next to him, who immediately said, "They took all the evidence from the Tomoe household to an intermediary Foreign Affairs Intelligence Analysis Bureau storehouse, fourth floor." He paused and did not have to look to his side to know his partner was glaring at him. In Japanese, he added, "You can go on heroically resisting torture all you want, Akira, you're the one with all the Tom Clancy books on your desk! Me, I've got pictures of my wife and kids on mine! I'm a forensic accountant, when I signed up for this they never told me I'd be robbing people's houses and getting shot to hunt down a terrorist cell that didn't exist until this week!"

The only words Bill understood of that were 'Tom Clancy', but Nadine didn't indicate he was lying, so he pressed on. "Okay, so they took it to the Foreign Affairs Intelligence Analysis Bureau storehouse. What are they going to do with it there?"

"Sort and categorize it, send the most applicable evidence to the Ministry of Justice to help build a criminal case, send the rest to any other interested governmental bodies. Take about two days, tops." The man's partner, Akira, gave him a sneer that said 'I don't even know you any more'.

"All right," said Bill, trying to sound unbelieving, "And if I believed you, where would I find this storehouse?"

The man thought about it for a second, then responded in rapid-fire, "Take a left out of here, go for three stoplights and then you're gonna want to hang a right, stay on that road until you cross the river and then go under the monorail overpass..."

"Wait wait wait, slow down. I'm not going to remember all that, just give me a street address. What street is it on?"

"Oh, it's on the street right by the big Toyota plaza, it's real hard to miss. You get there by taking a left at the fourth light after the monorail..."

Bill looked up with suspicious confusion. Nadine chuckled from underneath her ice pack and said "Bill, you haven't noticed by now they don't name streets in Tokyo?"

Bill looked aghast, pointed at the G-Man, and screeched like Donald Sutherland at the end of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. He'd finally found the apotheosis of the insane, selfish, uncaring, predatory government he had tried to warn others of, and it existed in Tokyo's urban planning department.

Donna got a pad and pencil to write down the directions. Nadine found the house's first aid kit, mercifully unlooted, and went to work disinfecting and bandaging Akira's leg. Phil went upstairs and came back down with Hotaru, her face lightly streaked with tears. She'd lost her 'Sailor Saturn' getup and changed into a standard black shirt and pants; she was holding a plastic bag with another change of clothes in it. Once Donna finished transcribing the directions -- she needed to spill over onto the back of the page -- they made sure the two G-Men couldn't get to a phone but weren't going to die or rot there. Nadine turned on the TV and got them a glass of orange juice with a straw before they went, and Akira drank his portion reluctantly and only after some cajoling.

Donna walked out last and as she was closing the door behind her a thought occured. She opened the door back up and poked her head in. "Hey, when you said you were on a joint task force, who's it jointly with?"

The cooperative one blinked. "Why, the FBI, of course."

∙ ∙ ∙

The attack was over, and it looked like the forces of goodness had come out on top. Once the dust had settled (and Haruka had reported her car stolen), the nine of them -- Ami, Minako, Usagi, Chibi-Usa, Rei, Makoto, Haruka, Michiru, and Mamoru -- had all assembled in a room at the Hikawa Shrine to hash out what was going on and what to do next. The 'Inner Senshi' were gathered around the table in the center, while Haruka, Michiru and Mamoru were standing behind them and leaning in to hear what they were saying. Makoto was in a wheelchair with her leg elevated and still visibly disoriented from the painkillers, Chibi-Usa was clutching on to the Luna-P like a life preserver. Minako had a pad of paper and a pen to take notes; more because she needed something to do with her hands than she needed notes to refer back to.

"Okay, here's the rundown," said Ami. "These are the facts, this is what we know." Makoto giggled, but didn't offer up anything else, and Ami continued. "Last Wednesday evening, Dr. Tomoe Suoichi and the Death Busters tried to summon the Pharaoh 90 at the Mugen Academy. Sailor Saturn intended to give her life to kill the Pharaoh, but something malfunctioned and the summoning was aborted before she could do so."

"Which also pulled each of us in a line closer to Toudai, depending on how close we were standing to the portal," Michiru added. "Apparently there was some other event at the university that sent a few people, including Usagi, to the hospital, but the papers said they weren't related and they had almost no information about it."

"Right," Ami nodded at Michiru, "which would probably indicate that Sailor Saturn ended up at the site of the Toudai explosion, as she was standing closest to the portal when it happened. If the two are related, and there is no reason to believe they are not."

"And Sailor Saturn ended up in the custody of people who claim to be, but are not, FBI agents," added Haruka. "If she wound up at the Toudai explosion it's possible they were responsible for it. They might have been at the Mugen site, but now that I think about it there weren't any places for them to be hiding. Maybe we heard what they were saying through the portal." She paused and ran her fingers through her hair, sighed. "In any case, I don't think they're with the Death Busters, but I don't think they're up to any good."

Ami continued. "So, after the explosion, we were flung all over the place, our Senshi Transformations turned off, and paramedics arrived on the scene, even though emergency services usually can't notice things like this happening. Usagi is unconscious for a couple days and nobody can find her since she didn't have any ID in her pockets. Hotaru is in the same hospital, but we don't know about it, probably for the same reason as Usagi. For a period of two to two and a half days, our Senshi powers don't work, but they come back around when Usagi wakes up."

"But," added Rei, "They don't come back right away, they fade in gradually. They didn't just come on when Usagi came back. And in those two days, there are no daimon attacks. Then around when our powers come back, twenty daimons attack the city simultaneously."

"So you think that whatever was inhibiting our powers was preventing them from attacking as well?" asked Mamoru. "That it might not have been directed at us, but something that stopped magic in general?"

"It's a reasonable assumption to make, but we don't know for sure." Ami waved her hand a bit. "Anyway, twenty daimons attack at once. They are bigger, stronger, more durable, and made out of more dangerous objects than the daimons we have fought so far, but we can still beat them because they act in very unusual ways."

"They're stupid, is what they are," said Makoto, her head lolling to one side. "Stupid and really whiny."

"Yes, that. They talk constantly but repeat the same few phrases about how we shoudl leave them alone and go away, and they don't seem connected to their actions. They move in a straight line towards the last person to attack them, unless they think they cannot run as fast as that person in which case they remain still and just face them. They harvest Pure Heart Crystals en masse, rather than searching for a certain one like before, and once they are attacked they do not go back to harvesting."

"And there's creepy hypnotised people following them around that don't come to their senses when I try to heal them, who stack people up for the daimon to drain," added Usagi.

"Right," said Ami, "and they try to get more people for the daimon to drain, and defend it from attacks, but they only react to things they can see. The daimon either can't or won't tell them it's being attacked and they don't turn around even if they hear a battle." She paused. "Actually, you know what it reminds me of?"

Nobody did, so after a few seconds she continued. "It reminds me of a bad computer program. The way they act, it's like they were programmed, but only to use one sense, only to respond to a very limited set of circumstances in a very limited way, and once one of their responses is triggered there's no command that lets them get out of the response sequence and go back to what they were doing."

Minako shrugged. "Could be." Then she paused. "Hey, the two women with the staves, Castor and Pollux or whatever, they were the last of the Witches 5, right?"

"Cyprine and... Petrol? I think?" said Ami, "But yeah, she said she was the last of them."

"Why do they get to call them the Witches 5 if there's six of them?" added Makoto.

"I don't know, why is that?" Minako paused for a moment. "Anyway, anyway. Queen Metallia didn't go around summoning youma, she had Queen Beryl do it for her, and then Queen Beryl had the four Dark Generals to do it for her. And Wiseman had that whole 'black moon' deal."

Rei looked off to the side, thinking. "And Pharaoh 90 had the Witches 5, Mistress 9, and Dr. Tomoe... all of whom are dead now. Do you think that this is what happens when he starts controlling things directly?"

"Maybe," Minako shrugged. "Maybe the reason these big horrible threats to humanity always work through layers of underlings is that they're really bad at being actual commanders?"

"I tried talking to Puu-chan," interjected Chibi-Usa, "but she didn't know anything. I asked for her help and she said we didn't need it, that Hotaru killed the Pharaoh and prevented the Silence from happening and that Sailor Moon turned her into a baby so she could live her life over again. When I told her what was happening, she said something about being 'a sinking wrist'." She paused, and tears began to well in the corners of her eyes. "She also looked more scared than I've ever seen her in my life."

They were all quiet for a couple moments. Then Usagi patted Chibi-Usa on the thigh and said, "Come on, don't be afraid! We've all been through scary stuff like this before, and we've always come out okay! All she needs to know is that her friends are here for her and she'll be okay."

Chibi-Usa nodded and let go of the Luna-P, letting it float up to eye level. "Luna-P, let me talk to Puu-Chan!" There was a slight whirring noise, and the pupil in the left eye of the cat-face changed into a ringing phone icon. After five rings, Chibi-Usa started to think Puu wouldn't answer, but then the ringing phone was replaced by an image of Setsuna Meioh's face. She looked weary and haggard, dark circles under her eyes, and she kept looking behind her.

"Small Lady? Is that you?" she said, and Chibi-Usa could tell she was wringing her hands even though they were off screen.

"Puu-chan? Are you alright? You look sick."

There was a four second pause, just like when someone at NASA tries to have a conversation with someone on the Moon. "No, Small Lady, I'm not all right," she said without even attempting to put on a strong face. "My, my vision of the future's gone asynchronous with what's happening. I don't know what's going on any more, I just know what would be going on if something different had happened. I'm, it's like everything I thought I knew isn't true any more and I can't, I can't... I'm afraid, Small Lady. I'm afraid about what's going to happen." She looked to be on the verge of tears.

"Don't be so upset, Puu-chan!" said Chibi-Usa, wishing she was there in person to give her a hug. "All of us are a little scared too, but we know we have each other! Nothing bad's going to happen to you, Puu-chan, because we won't let it. Right, everybody?"

Everyone in the room voiced their agreement, though only Makoto did so with a "hell yeah!"

Four second pause, then Setsuna smiled. It was a sad, lonely smile. "That's very kind of you, Small Lady, but I... wait, hold on, there's someone..." Pluto turned away from the screen. "How did you get here?" In the background, a faintly heard hiss. Pluto brought up her keystaff and whispered "dead scream" but before she could fire it off some THING tackled her out of frame, something fast and covered in shiny black scales and a row of serrated teeth. There were sounds of a struggle, grunts and hisses of pain, claws ripping flesh and a staff cracking bone. Chibi-Usa cried out in horror but anything she said would take two seconds to arrive and the reaction would take another two seconds to come back.

There was a squeal and the sound of something's neck being stomped on, and Sailor Pluto walked back into frame. The lighting hadn't changed, but now her face was cast in unnatural shadow, her eyes hanging in the blackness like two rings of garnet. Her fuku was ripped, she was bleeding, and her smile foretold nothing but sorrow and ruin.

"Puu! Are you okay? What happened?"

One second pause, and Pluto spoke in a low, throaty whisper. "You can tell your mother she can keep her grail and she can keep her friend because I'm going to kill her anyway and I think she'll be so much the sweeter if her panic has a couple days to fester."

Then Pluto's face was replaced with the pupil of the Luna-P's left eye.

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

HOFFMANN INSTITUTE AGENT NUMBER S-0014408 NAME: NEARY, DR. NADINE LESLIE

AGE: 37 PREV. ASSOCIATION: Mayo Clinic (Civilian, Medical); Centers for Disease Control (Governmental, Medical)  
ASSIGNMENT: Investigation & Response Team Rho

HISTORY: An Iowa native, Dr. Neary attended Iowa State University (go Cyclones) on a gymnastics scholarship, but soon abandoned dreams of competitive gymnastics to pursue a career in medicine. After graduating medical school she moved to Rochester, Minnesota to work at the Mayo Clinic. Her main field of expertise was infectious diseases, and in addition to her standard practice she performed a great deal of research into the Hepatitis A virus, collaborating closely with the Centers for Disease Control to find a workable vaccine.

In August of 1992, researchers at a commercial laboratory discovered a cure for the Hepatitis A virus, using a method Dr. Neary had previously disregarded as a dead end and incorporating almost none of her research.

Dr. Neary joined the Institute after being involved in an October 1992 incident that concerned the summoning of an ice-demon at a rural Idaho truck stop, where she had stopped while en route to a microbiology conference in Seattle where the discoverers of the new vaccine would be speaking.

PSYCHOLOGY: Much like Dr. Akens, Dr. Neary has conflated her work with her worth. Unlike Dr. Akens, she knows that her work ended up being useless, and this causes her to fear that she is uselss as a human being. Neary does not have a mad drive to prove her usefulness to others, she is fully aware that the only audience she needs to placate are the chorus of doubts in her own mind. So long as she feels useful to herself, it does not matter if others recognize it. This lends her to meddle extensively in the affairs of others, to offer 'sage advice' that is neither wanted, useful, or wise, to correct the behaviors of most people she meets (so as to make them better people, of course), to visibly relish any situation in which others depend on her, and other irritating but thankfully not psychopathic behaviors.

Working for the Institute allows Dr. Neary to have a job that allows her to feel as if she is useful and making a difference (never mind the difference she made in the live of her patients at the clinic), and it allows the Institute to retain a trained medical doctor who does not demand anything close to a doctor's actual salary.

SPECIES: Human PROFESSION: Tech Op ACHIEVMENT LEVEL: 5

STR 07 [+0 INT 13 [+2  
DEX 11 [+1 WIL 10 [+0  
CON 08 PER 11

Second Sight [0: After an aggravating fiasco in Spokane, Washington involving a warlock making heavy use of 'glamours', I&R Team Rho was assigned to be trained in the piercing of illusions by a known mystic and psychic. Dr. Neary, however, had to attend her sister's wedding on the weekend the lessons were performed and could not recieve the training. A make-up appointment was made, but the psychic died of a cerebral aneurysm before the meeting could occur -- something that Nadine thinks he should have seen coming. Though Nadine has no enchanced ability to pierce illusion, she is immune to the metacognitive effects that surround youma and other creatures and prevent people from recognizing them as a threat or remembering their attacks, this can most likely be directly attributed to a phenomenon known as the "PC Aura.  
Concentration [3: Nadine can be a very focused individual when the situation calls for it. Once per scene, she may take a round to make an INT feat check, her next action attempted gains a -1/-2/-3 step bonus on an O/G/A success. This bonus is lost if she is disturbed in any way.

Combat Information:  
Weapon: Score: Range (S/M/L): Damage (O/G/A): Type:  
Unarmed 12/6/3 Personal d4s/d4+1s/d4+2s LI/O Gun 5/2/1 As Weapon As Weapon HI/O

Action Check: 14+/13/6/3

Durability: 08 / 08 / 04 / 04

Actions Per Round: 2

Last Resort Points: 2

Athletics [07/3/1  
Acrobatics [11/5/2  
Defensive Martial Arts 1 [12/6/3  
Dodge 1 [12/6/3  
Tumbling 1 [12/6/3  
Vehicle Operation [11/5/2  
Stamina [08/4/2  
Knowledge [13/6/3  
Computer Operation 2 [15/7/3  
Deduce 1 [14/7/3  
Language (Japanese) 3 Language (Korean) 3 Life Science [13/6/3  
Biology 2 [15/7/3  
Genetics 1 [14/7/3  
Xenology 1 [14/7/3  
Medical Science [13/6/3  
Forensics 2 [15/7/3  
Medical Knowledge 3 [16/8/4  
Surgery 1 [14/7/3  
Treatment 3 [16/8/4  
Awareness [10/5/2  
Intuition 1 [11/5/2  
Perception 2 [12/6/3  
Interaction [11/5/2  
Bargain 1 [12/6/3  
Charm 1 [12/6/3 


	5. Double Check

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

Special thanks to Pavel for providing Russian translations that he will probably be the only one to ever read but that I demanded anyway.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

"Iron Butterfy to Lead Zeppelin, come in Lead Zeppelin." Donna's voice, tinny and crackly, came out of a speaker set into Sailor V's bright plastic mouth. They'd rather use actual two-way radios instead of walkie-talkies shaped like children's cartoon characters, but actual two-way radios are expensive and they could barely afford these.

Nadine picked up the toy and depressed the 'Talk' button in Sailor V's ear. "This is Lead Zeppelin, go ahead Iron Butterfly." The toy's antenna, wrapped in soft blue plastic, drooped and jiggled with each motion of her hand.

"I'm at the junction box now. Is Jefferson Starship in position?"

Nadine glanced behind her to see Bill and Hotaru standing just around the corner from the Foreign Affairs Intelligence Analysis Bureau building, Bill dragging a hand truck loaded with boxes, Hotaru wearing his jacket that reached down to her ankles. He was giving her a few more random Russian phrases to memorize while both of them waited for her to give the signal.

"Jefferson Starship is in the launch position and waiting for your go-ahead."

"Copy that," Donna's voice crackled back, "Cutting lines in five..."

Nadine looked back again, raised one finger, and pointed toward the storehouse. Bill and Hotaru nodded and started walking forward. "Jefferson Starship is inbound," said Nadine into the walkie-talkie, "Operation Glass Firefly is go."

From the passenger seat, Phil scoffed. "I still cannot believe you wanted to name this 'Operation Slow Ride'."

"Oh, so now it's a big deal to you? I didn't complain about 'Operation Seal Ion' and that doesn't even make sense."

"That's the point, see!" said Phil as he leaned in toward her, "It's a pun! 'Operation Sea LION' is the reason operation names no longer have anything to do with what they are, and 'Operation Seal ION' is just gibberish, but it sounds like... you see?"

Nadine shrugged. "So, that doesn't make it any better than 'Operation Slow Ride'. Slow Ride's a great song!"

Donna cut the phone access to the building. Bill and Hotaru threw open the front doors and barged into the front office of an MiB-controlled facility like they owned the place. And out in the car, Nadine drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

"Slo-ow ride... dah-da dah, dah-nah, dah-nah-nah... Take it ea-say..."

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 5: DOUBLE-CHECK ∙ ∙ ∙

OUTSIDE JAPANESE FOREIGN AFFAIRS INTELLIGENCE BUREAU ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE #23 TOKYO, JAPAN SUNDAY FEBRUARY 20, 1995, 7:48 PM

Tomoe Hotaru's heart was racing, her hands sweating inside her elegant white gloves. She was about to rob a government facility with two people who are, essentially, total strangers, so some anxiety is understandable. But that's not the only reason behind this reaction.

Tomoe Hotaru was excited. She knew she shouldn't have been, but she couldn't help it. What she was doing was wrong, and not just in the sense that it was against the law, but in the sense that it was really stupid. Earlier today she'd been unconscious in a hospital bed and dreaming of a nightmare wonderland on the Moon where all things both respected and reviled her, and now she was committing crimes with random idiots. Crimes that may very well be pointless as they have no way of knowing if what they want is really here. They have a plan that will almost certainly go wrong at some point and end in screaming, running, and shooting. What she's doing is stupid.

But it's what SHE was doing. Standing on the sidewalk with an old Army surplus coat on over her Sailor Saturn outfit, her tiara stuffed in her pocket, repeating back random Russian phrases to an unstable-looking white man, she felt more in control of her situation than she had in a very long time. She wasn't here because it was her destiny, she wasn't here because Kaolinite or her father or the dark powers he served wanted her to be here. She was here because something she wanted was here and she wanted to get it. Nobody told her she couldn't and nobody stopped her, and nobody forced her to either.

When the four faux-FBI agents were formulating plans that involved bomb threats or flaming dumpsters or ammonium nitrate, they didn't make her become an accomplice. And when she offered up her opinion that they didn't have to break in to get past security, but make it so security would rather let them in than deal with the alternative, they had listened and they agreed. And they formulated a plan that was at least 50 or more hers -- they let her name it, and not as a token gesture of pity either. It was because they didn't like the name Dr. Neary came up with, but Hotaru still considers that better than pity. And now that plan was being put into effect.

Hotaru, being a very well-read and intelligent girl, knows that it is juvenile to feel this sense of liberation from being allowed her own stupid actions. And yet she feels liberated all the same.

Dr. Neary gave them the signal and Hotaru and Bill nodded back, then walked in to the building like they had every right to be there. That's what their whole plan was, act like they belong, and it's the kind of thing Hotaru read about in books and wished she could do. She thought she never could, until she realized she was just about to. The thought that she could have that kind of audacity was terrifying and exhilarating. Was it too late to back out now, to change her mind, to make Dr. Neary or Dr. Akens take her part? She was inside the front door, yes it was.

Inside the building was a small room with one other door and one elevator. On the far wall was a fake mahogany desk, behind which sat a security guard in a cheap, black suit, alternating his attention between his computer monitor and his issue of 'Shonen Jump'. Hotaru's fingers were shaking and her throat was stiffening, and there was no way the guard didn't see how scared she was and why did she ever think she could do this why didn't she turn around and leave why did she have to speak up why couldn't she let them try and crack the place by ramming a dumpster filled with flaming garbage into the front door? At least then when they failed it would be their fault and not hers!

The guard laid his magazine down on the desk with one finger in it to keep his page. "Can I help you, ma'am?" he said in the most disaffected voice he could manage.

She froze for a good two seconds, then she stared at him with eyes and a smile that were both too wide. "Yes, hello there!" She turned back and gestured at Bill, who was trying to get the hand truck he was dragging over the ridge of the doorway. "This is Officer Vladimir Zolstakov, and I'm his interpreter," she stopped to think of a name for an amount of time that she was sure made him suspicious, "Minaguchi Yuko. Officer Zolstakov is here for the case involving Dr. Tomoe."

Bill leaned forward and extended a hand. "Kak tolko ty nas pustish, ya napolnyu eti yashiki kradennym," he said with a warm smile.

The security guard looked at Bill's hand for a few seconds, then tenatively extended his own to meet it. Bill's handshake was vigorous, long, and very, very firm. When it concluded, the guard wiped his hand off on his shirt, then tapped at his keyboard for a few moments. "I'm sorry... Minaguchi-san, but there's no mention of any Officer Zolstakov here."

She put her hand to her chest to show just how shocked she was, and instantly knew she'd oversold it, that the man could see right through her. "That's impossible! Officer Zolstakov has been working very closely with the FBI on this case from the beginning, we're bringing over all of Spetznaz's records that pertain to this group..." She turned back to Bill, pointed at him, and pieced together some Russian-sounding gibberish. "Nyet, ved tzorko gorojye... gorojye bryn!"

Bill immediately looked outraged and personally insulted by the security guard in the bad suit. The words Hotaru had just said were meaningless and he had no idea what the Japanese conversation they were having meant, he just knew that when Hotaru pointed at him and said her Russian gobbledygook it was time to get angry. He exhaled heavily and pushed his way past his 'interpreter', stomping up to the desk and shouting "Vot, i esho zapihayu tebe zhvachki v zamochnuyu skvazhinu!" He pulled a laminated card from his wallet with a great flourish and slammed it on the counter, pointing at it and saying "Eh? Eh?"

The card was actually a laminated gym membership, for a gym in Kiev, that expired a year ago. But the card was in color, it had his picture on it, the stylized bicep in the background looked kind of like a stylized and intimidating-looking claw, and all the writing was in the Cyrillic alphabet. A Japanese guy who doesn't speak or read either Russian or Ukranian and has no idea what a Spetznaz ID card would look like could easily be fooled.

Hotaru pulled back on his arm, very relieved that the focus was momentarily on him and not on her. "Nyet, Vladimir, nyet! Y dih kunyeh zochinyu!" Bill stepped away from the desk and let the guard study his gym membership card, as if he could actually understand it.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said after a few moments of intense scrutiny, "but I can't let you in without proper authorization."

"Then could you call the Director and ask him yourself?" asked Hotaru, trying desperately to get caught up in the moment. "Officer Zolstakov just got off a very long flight, we were separated and he was held up in customs for hours with no interpreter, our taxicab couldn't find the right neighborhood, and now his name is not in the system... It's been a very long day and we would like to finish this and get to our hotel as soon as we can."

"Da ya tebe mogu chto ugodno kalyakat. Ty vso ravno menya ne ponimayesh!" added Bill.

The guard picked up the phone and punched in two numbers before he realized the line was dead. "I'm sorry... our phone does not appear to be working right now..." and in that moment Hotaru had the horrid realization that the man had a cell phone, of course he had a cell phone, they were in Tokyo for Pete's sake, and he reached down to his pocket and he pulled up his radio. "Itsuki-san, are your phones working?"

A pause, and then a voice came back, "Nope, actually, I can't get a dial tone."

"We did see an automobile accident close by here on our way over," said Hotaru, "maybe one of the cars took out a phone line? The public works people will probably have it fixed by tomorrow."

The guard frowned. "Itsuki-san, do you know anything about a man named Vladimir Zolstakov who's supposed to come by here?"

The radio crackled again. "You know they don't tell me anything, Fuyoshi-san."

Hotaru turned around and 'explained' the situation with more chunks of random Slav-ish syllables. Bill listened to the whole thing, nodding and making grunts of comprehension. When she was done, he pointed at 'Fuyoshi' the security guard and said "Kstati, vsem vidno chto tvoy pidzhak --- pricepka," in the way someone might explain something to a particularly slow Russian toddler.

"Officer Zolstakov and I are both very tired and we need to sleep. He would like to know if there is any way we could just drop these records off and call back in the morning when everything is sorted out?" Hotaru fidgeted, rubbed her heel on her toe, and she knew that he saw it and the jig was up. Her stomach plummeted, her skin flushed with cold water, and she could barely speak around the weight of her tongue. "Some of... these materials are very sensitive and we wouldn't be comfortable leaving them around in, in an unsecured hotel room."

Fuyoshi the Security Guard thought it over and Hotaru thought she was going to pass out. This was it, this was the moment of truth, and she KNEW she'd blown it. What was supposed to happen was the guard would feel intimidated but not directly threatened by a strange man speaking Russian loudly and angrily at him, be given a situation in which he didn't have enough information to make a decision, credibly believe he could get in trouble either way, and choose the option that delayed the unpleasantness until later. That wasn't what was happening, though. He was on to them, she could see it in the suspicious cast over his eyes. He knew Spetznaz wasn't involved in this, he knew that this wasn't even the kind of thing Spetznaz did, and he was just giving them enough rope to hang themselves. He saw how nervous she was, how unsure her speech and action, and he'd sniffed out her deception instantly.

Why was she even doing this? This wasn't the kind of thing she did at all! Tomoe Hotaru reads books and collects antique lamps, she doesn't get arrested and maybe executed for posing as a Spetznaz interpreter! That was the kind of thing she read about, and even then, she didn't read about it that often! All she did was overhear some other people making up wild and crazy plots to get in and they were just going around in circles so they asked her what she thought and she only thought she had to humor them so she answered with something from a spy novel she'd read and then all of sudden they turned to her like she knew what she was doing and she'd been too stupidly, childishly excited by the fact that people would actually give her that kind of attentiton to realize how incredibly stupid it was until it was far too late! And now it was over! The guard was going for the button to summon the police squad right now!

The guard reached under the desk and tapped a button. On the side of the room, the elevator doors opened with a low 'buzz'. "Okay, go on up. It's on the fourth floor, third door on the right. But come right back down!" Hotaru almost didn't hear him over the thunderous rushing of blood in her ears.

"Oh... Okay, thank you," she squeaked out of her cotton-filled throat. She turned around to Bill and gave the 'okay' signal with her hands, saying a few more gibberish words. Bill looked at the guard, gave him a 'thumbs-up' and the broadest, fakest smile Hotaru had ever seen, and the two of them quickly walked into the open elevator.

Hotaru pushed the button, the doors slid closed, and the two of them let out enormous sighs of relief. In unison they turned to each other and said "I did not think that was going to work!" Then they laughed, nervously.

"I guess you were right," said Bill, "if they don't know what the FBI does they don't know what Spetznaz does either." He pulled a stick of gum out of his pocket and started to chew it.

"Yeah," said Hotaru, still nervously chuckling with disbelief, "I guess they don't!"

∙ ∙ ∙

Hino Rei gazed intently into the flickering flames, repeating mantras in a dull murmur, her hands endlessly shifting between sutras. With rapt attention she stared at the tounges of orange and red that danced before her eyes, eager to drink in their secrets. Hino Rei was not truly a pyromaniac, but here while she read the fire, she could easily see the attraction.

Divining the future was always a difficult business, for Time is an unstable artiste and she hates to let her work be seen before it is done. Glimpses obtained are fleeting and incomplete, and the times it is truly important -- the times when one is most likely to need a vision of the future -- destiny covers events like a heavy black shroud, difficult to pierce. Rei knows these difficulties but she is prepared for them, for she knows the reward is worth the toil. Sometimes, she knows, she must know what the future is before she knows how she can prevent it, and if discovering this is an arduous task then an arduous task she will undertake.

What frustrated Rei now was how easy her task was. Visions came to her freely and quickly, and she did not have to struggle to interpret their meaning. They were clear and crisp and nonthreatening and utterly useless. She just saw visions of herself and her friends having normal, ordinary days. She saw Usagi oversleeping and coming in late to school, and she saw Ami admonishing her to be more serious about her studies, like they always did. She saw herself sweeping the steps of the shrine and waving to her grandfather as he walked out to the store. Makoto playing football after school, with no sign of a broken leg. Haruka racing around the oval track in a car she no longer had. And Dr. Tomoe Suoichi holding his infant daughter Hotaru and burbling baby-talk to her, even though Dr. Tomoe Suoichi was pronounced dead on arrival by triage nurses at Juuban General Hospital at 9:58 AM Thursday morning.

Rei thought back to what Sailor Pluto had said. What she'd said while she was still Sailor Pluto, and not... "My vision of the future's gone asynchronous with what's happening. I don't know what's going on any more, I just know what would be going on if something different had happened." She thought of how completely terrified Pluto had been, and she shivered. For her it would be like going blind... or finding out every single thing you knew about the world was wrong. Or both, at the same time.

She shook off the thought and focused on the fire. How it had presence and no substance, it moved and was still, it spoke in no tongue and wrote in no alphabet and fed without hunger. It was the essence of change and transformation. The fire held the future in it, and if she looked hard enough she would pass the meaningless visions and find it.

Her grandfather opened the door and she yelped at the sudden intrusion, almost falling over. Her first, mad instinct was to throw herself between the fire and him so he couldn't see it, as if a fire was something like a hentai manga that nobody could see you with.

"Rei! There you are, I've been trying to find you for half an hour!" said her grandfather, oblivious to what he was interrupting. "I just wanted to remind you that those people from the television show are going to be coming in later this evening, so if your friends come back over try not to make too much noise or get in their way."

Rei put her hand over her eyes and rubbed her temples. "Yes, Grandfather, you told me about that. We'll be very quiet."

"Good," said her grandfather, "Because they'll have just come off a long flight from America and they probably don't want to be kept up all night with giggling and gossip and all that," here he made quotes in the air with this fingers, "girly stuff."

"You don't have to worry Grandfather, they won't even know we're here."

He nodded. "I'm glad I can count on you, Rei." He turned around and started to walk away without bothering to close the door. "Yes, I believe the--" he cleared his throat, tapped his chest with his fist, and started over in a lower tone of voice, "Yes, I believe the Hikawa Shrine has a long spiritual history. I've often felt a presence while walking the grounds, and it's only intensified since..."

Rei stretched across the floor in a futile attempt to slide the door closed without getting up, but unless her arms grew another four feet it wasn't happening. She rubbed her eyes, they hurt after staring at the fire for this long. All she needed to do was give them a break, just a little bit of rest before she tried again. There was no way she could see the future clearly with dry, itchy eyes.

Rei didn't remember getting up and walking to the street, but she must have, because that's where she was now. Everything around her was in black and white but her body and the Sailor Mars garb she was wearing were in full, brilliant Technicolor and she couldn't see anything wrong with that. On the left side of the street was Sailor Moon, and on the right was a woman with a gun. There was some kind of horrid lizard-person running at Sailor Moon, its scales glistening in a light that had no visible source, its mouth filled with serrated teeth, its hands ending in obsidian claws.

It ran at Sailor Moon with absurd speed but it never seemed to reach her. Sailor Moon was holding out her Moon Rod and shouting "Moon Spiral Heart Attack" -- or that's what it looked like her lips were saying, all Rei could hear was a dull, repetetive 'whud-whud-whud' that came from all around her. Sparks and ribbons of black-and-white energy struck the creature over and over again, and it flinched, but never seemed to slow down. To her right, the woman with the gun fired it again and again at an advancing daimon, one that Rei remembered was made from a tree at the shrine. She fired dozens of times without reloading and each shot struck the creature dead-on but was harmlessly deflected.

Down the center of the street walked a stream of people looking straight ahead, and when one of them turned to the side a man in a black suit with a black tie, a black hat, and black sunglasses stepped out of a shadow and put his hand over that person's face. When Rei looked real closely, that hand had a thumb on each side of it.

She turned around and there was a whole line of men in black suits, stretching off as far as the eye could see, looking straight ahead, though only two or three that she could see wore glasses. Sailor Saturn was walking past them, wearing a long coat that was translucent to show her sailor fuku underneath it. As she passed each man they kept on looking straight ahead, but when she passed one of the men with glasses he turned to look at her and he kept following her as he moved on. He reached into his pocket as if to pull out a gun, but instead pulled out a hand wreathed in living shadow. Chibi-Usa was walking down the road in the other direction, and she and Saturn waved at each other as they passed, and then the heads of the sunglasses-men were following Chibi-Usa'a movements.

Rei turned around again and found she was not on the street at all, but underground. She was in a great, hollow cavern, all around her were stone carvings and obsidian spires and the teeming ministrations of hundreds and hundreds of the lizard-people. Between them, swinging her great key-staff to and fro striking thier heads and rears, was Sailor Pluto -- or at least, the walking silhouette of Sailor Pluto, with only her eyes and hair visible in full color. She was watching the lizards digging into the air, using shovels painted with a black star, and the object of their search was the spherical, pulsing dark hole hanging in the air above them. The hole was not evil itself, but it was powerful, and if Sailor Pluto's silhouette reached it it would be able to climb out and into the world to the ruin of all things.

And then Rei realized she wasn't in a cavern, no, she was in a subway car. It was about ten meters wide and at the end of it, sitting alone on the rear bench, was Hotaru. She had Sailor Saturn's Silence Glaive in front of her, point up, and gently swayed the polearm back and forth, pointing to her left and her right. Her gaze followed the weapon, back and forth and back again, and she was chewing on her fingernail. She seemed to be mulling over something of great importance.

The 'whud' noise from before was gone, replaced by the music coming from the speakers in the subway car. The lyrics were in English, but Rei understand them perfectly because this was the only song she ever listened to. "If I leave here tomorrow... would you still remember me..."

To Hotaru's right were nine beautiful and elegant women wearing dresses and gowns of literally un-Earthly grace. They were not simply the nine Sailor Senshi, they were the nine Princesses of the Moon Kingdom as they appeared at its zenith. Rei saw herself there, the Princess of Mars, and the Princess of Pluto was there too even though she knew that Pluto wasn't here, that they were on the subway to find her. So was the Princess of Saturn, but she stood to the side , away from the rest, and even if the scene were not in black-and-white she knew her gown would be jet black. All of them stared straight ahead, unmoving, unblinking, a sculpture of perfection that any change would ruin. No, all but one of them: the Princess of Saturn did not belong. The other Princesses wore jewlery of silver, diamond, emerald; Princess Saturn wore jewlery of glass and tin. Her dress did not match the others in color or quality, and her hands were quivering as she tried to remain still. Nothing else in the scene depended on her, and there would be no visible gap if she were to be removed altogether. Though it was still a beautiful scene with her presence, were she to be taken out it would truly be flawless. Rei had the horrid impression those dresses weighed a thousand pounds.

To Hotaru's left were six people that looked like they'd been in a tornado. All of them were dirty and disheveled, and only one of them was someone Rei recognized. Four of them looked vaguely American or European, but their faces were hazy and indistinct. One was a short, bald thing can can only be called a "man" by charity, with a thin, frail frame, grey skin, and a head too large for his body and black oval eyes too large for his head. And there was Sailor Saturn, younger and thinner and more sickly than Rei remembered. Her uniform was old and dingy, ripped in several places, like she'd been wearing it for years. She had a blindfold over her eyes and a broken hangman's noose around her neck, that she kept touching for reassurance the way one might touch a crucifix or a star of David. On the floor all around her were pieces of broken glass, snakes, and the fingers of horrible things waiting to drag her into the dark depths below. She was barefoot, walking in aimless, squiggling paths, stopping to pick up things only she could see but all of them needed. They thanked her each time she found something, and they meant it, and each time she was about to step on something horrible one of the other five would grab her and turn her away from the danger. But they were also carrying on their own conversations with each other, not paying full attention to her task, and Rei knew that she was going to get grabbed by one of those hands eventually and the others wouldn't be fast enough or smart enough to save her. And then once Saturn failed to aid them, they would all be dead as well.

Over the speakers, Rei heard "Lord knows, I can't change, Lord help me, I can't chaye-ea-ea-ea-- Lord, I can't change! Won't you flyyy... highhh... freee... birrrd..." When the guitar solo began, Sailor Saturn pulled up her blindfold, Tomoe Hotaru looked up from her weapon, and Princess Saturn turned her head. Three faces were now looking right at Rei with the same set of eyes, the same expression of uncertainty and loneliness and sorrow and desperate fear. They all needed answers like a man in the desert needs water, but they were not answers Rei could give.

When Rei woke again, all the fire would show her was a cooing, happy infant with no great decisions to face.

∙ ∙ ∙

Sailor Mercury stood, one hand holding her visor steady while the other adjusted it from the Mercury Computer, and stared intently at the sidewalk beneath her.

While Rei sought the future, the other Senshi were hitting the bricks. Haruka and Michiru were reluctant to take orders from Usagi, her actions last Thursday night having convinced them she was too foolish to lead, but when pressed they did agree that now was not the time to be arguing or witholding information. The two remaining Outer Senshi would work with the others, for now, if only because the two of them alone wouldn't have the manpower they needed. Any disputes they had -- and there were many -- could be worked out once the Pharaoh had been found and defeated.

Mamoru and Chibi-Usa had gone to the Tomoe household to see if there was any information there they could use. Michiru and Haruka had gone to see how close they could get to the Mugen wreckage for much the same reason. Rei sought the counsel of the flame, and Ami, Usagi, and Minako went to check on the subway station their last daimon had fled to. It didn't get very far, but it was the only daimon they saw trying to return after completing its mission and they were pretty sure none of the others had used the subway to get to where they were. Chances are, the subway wasn't its means of conveyance but its goal.

When they had arrived, the subway station was closed to repair the damage the daimon had done to it, a little cartoon man in a hard hat on a sign at the entrance told travelers he was 'sorry about the inconvenience' and asked them to 'pardon our dust'. Not that Sailor Mercury needed to be standing in the station to give it a looking-over, of course, above it worked just as well.

"Can you see anything, Mercury?" asked Moon, looking around her and feeling ridiculous for just standing on the sidewalk in her elegant, florid Senshi outfit. Not everyone was staring at her, but enough were.

"Yes..." she said, trying to fine-tune the sensors to just the right frequency, "there's three people down there cleaning up the glass and rivets, they've got a radio, and the tracks are still electrified, but those are the only energy signatures I see down there."

"Okay, so, if it was trying to get to somewhere it wasn't the station itself it was going for," said Venus. "Anything around it, like a tunnel the branches off into a secret hideout or something?"

"No... I'm trying... it isn't..." Mercury made an exasparated sigh, then she took the visor off and extended it toward Venus. "Here, you try looking for something. Look down at the sidewalk and I'll show you."

Venus looked downward and Mercury slipped the visor over her eyes; Venus had to hold it on with both hands because her head wasn't the same size as Mercury's. She blinked and took a moment to get accustomed to the translucent display, then started looking around beneath her. "Okay, I see... a couple of red shapes that look like people, a couple of green boxes, and then a green line, that must be the rail." She shifted her view forward a little bit. "And then, a bunch of purple and black with some orange squiggles." A pause. "Mercury, I really don't know what I'm looking for here."

"Just a second. Now, look up at me and Sailor Moon."

Minako did. "You're not as bright an orange as Moon is, Mercury, are you feeling chilly? Okay, a bunch of orange people walking around, green signs and storefronts, cars going by have red engines... I'm sorry, I don't see what it is I'm supposed to be seeing."

"Now, turn around and look up at the top floor of the building across the street from us."

Venus turned and began to look upward, around the time her head was at a forty-five degree angle she squealed "MY EYES!" and recoiled, letting the Mercury Visor fall from her face, though Sailor Mercury snatched it before it hit the sidewalk.

"Sailor Venus, are you all right? What happened?" asked Moon, rushing over to comfort her friend.

"I'm sorry," said Sailor Mercury, "I'm sorry. I had the sensitivity up a touch too high and then it was like you looked into a bright room with night-vision goggles on. I should have lowered it some more."

Venus rubbed her eyes and blinked. "A little warning next time might be nice!"

"But you did see what I was trying to show you, Venus. Nothing special is happening in that building, you would have got that reaction from any other building you looked at. That's how bright normal activity is at that sensitivity level."

"But Venus was just looking around at the street, and she wasn't blinded then," said Moon.

"I know. I had to turn the sensitivity way up to see things at a normal level. And when you look down you can only see below ground about twenty meters in any direction, even though it's usually much more." She paused, hand on her chin. "I think the visor is magical, at least partly, and it's being inhibited from picking things up like normally."

"So, do you think it's the same thing that made your powers not work that's making your visor not work?" asked Moon.

"Maybe..." Mercury responded and tapped on her chin... "Maybe it's not working right, but then our powers would be affected too... Maybe there's something it's picking up that's getting in the way... Hold on, let me try something." Mercury slid the visor back over her head and started tapping buttons on the Mercury Computer. "Quantum vacuum... no, that isn't it... Cosmic microwave background... nope... Makai-spectrum energy... not it either... Dark matt-- AAH! MY EYES!"

Mercury keeled over and rubbed at her eyes. Venus quipped "See? It hurts, doesn't it!"

"Okay, okay," said Mercury as she winced and shook her head. "I really should have known to turn down the sensitivity by now. But that tells us what our problem is, we must be close to a large amount of dark matter."

Moon looked concerned. "And that's what's draining the energy out of this place and making it so hard to see? Is it something that Queen Beryl used?"

Mercury was confused for a second. "What? Oh, oh, no no no. 'Dark matter', like 'dark' as in 'dark room', not like in 'dark kingdom'. They're both 'ankoku busshitsu', but it doesn't mean 'evil material', more like 'material we can't see'. It's not draining anything, but when I told the visor to search for all kind of matter and energy it was showing the dark matter by dimming everything else, since dark matter can't be detected directly."

"Oh. So, if we can't detect it, how do we find it?" asked Venus.

Mercury scratched her head. "Well, it seems like it's underground somewhere, but the real question is what is dark matter doing on Earth at all? It's supposed to be out in deep space, and it's still mostly a theoretical construct."

"If the daimon was trying to get into the subway underground," said Venus, "and the dark matter is underground, then we can guess it was probably wanted to go to the dark matter. Either that's where the Pharaoh is, or that's something he wants, but either way I think anything called 'dark matter' is never going to be good."

Mercury would have corrected her that dark matter had nothing to do with the metaphysical kind of darkness, but she had to agree that there was no way this would turn out to be a good thing.

"Sailor Mercury, is there any way we can get a closer idea of where it is?" asked Moon.

"Well, I can't get a direct detection of it... I can kind of tell how close I am to it by how dim things are, but nothing more precise than that. I might be able to triangulate it if I took readings all over the city..." She raised her finger and smiled suddenly in that 'eureka' gesture she so seldomly used, "Actually, if we got on the subway at another station and rode it around a complete loop, I could be taking readings the whole time and we wouldn't have to worry about walking everywhere or missing bus stops."

Moon smiled. "That's a great idea, Mercury!" She paused and reached for her pocket, only to realize she didn't have one. "Um... Did anyone remember to take the money out of their pockets before they transformed?"

∙ ∙ ∙

Bill was prepared to subdue the guard on the fourth floor and leave him in a broom closet with his hands zip-tied, but there was no guard on the fourth floor. They disconnected the alarm on the emergency exit to let Donna in, and that appeared to be the extent of the security on this floor -- the room where they were supposed to drop their boxes of newspapers and four pages of a Dean Koontz book handwritten and translated into Russian, in case the guy decided to check on the contents, was a conference room that didn't even have a lock on it. There had to be dedicated facilities and procedures for this kind of thing, but they sure weren't being used.

Donna and Bill were consulting with Phil about which pieces of equipment to take and which to leave behind, using the Sailor V walkie-talkie because neither of them wanted Phil in the building if things got hairy. The only one of the three that could read Japanese, Hotaru was looking for any written materials that may be useful while the other two scavenged the equipment that they hadn't already scaveneged the first time.

"Okay," said Donna into the microphone on Sailor V's nose, "we got a metal box, about... two feet to a side, door on the front, black star. Bunch of thick wires inside, looks like an Easy-Bake Oven from outer space."

"I don't know what that would be," said Phil through the speaker, "How heavy is it?"

Donna cradled the walkie-talkie in between her ear and shoulder and experimentally pulled at the box, grunting. "Oh, I'd say, hundred and fifty, two hundred pounds? We're not getting it out of here."

"It's the daimon incubator," said Hotaru, feeling great shame that she knew it. "They... we put daimon eggs inside there to hatch them."

"Miss Tomoe says it's an incubator for those monster things." Donna paused and turned to Hotaru. "Is it okay if I break it then? Is it going to explode or anything like that?" Hotaru shook her head and Donna kicked the inside of the incubator a few times, snapping the coils and cables inside. Then, for good measure, she kicked it so it fell backwards. "Okay, I broke it," she said to Phil, "the next item in our program is this pink stick with a crescent moon on it..."

"Hey," said Bill from the other side of the room, "Ask him what this metal tube... no, wait, I think this is a lamp." He held up the object, an antique desk lamp from 1938 wrapped in bubble wrap and missing its glass shade. "This yours?"

Hotaru didn't say 'yes', but the speed with which she ran over to take it out of his hands indicated her answer just as plainly. She looked into the box it came from and saw some of her other lamps, carefully taken apart, wrapped in bubble wrap, and then placed in styrofoam packing peanuts to avoid breaking. The men who took them were probably afraid that if they were broken, that some kind of evil spirits would come out of them, but the end result was still that they were here and mostly unharmed, from what she could see. She felt happy that her collection wasn't lost, and almost instantly ashamed that she'd care about such insignificant objects so much. She was sure normal people wouldn't be this happy about an ordinary lamp collection.

Next to the boxes with her lamps in them was a container that looked to be filled with paper files, and after digging a bit through the packing peanuts to get an idea of how many lamps were there, she looked into it. The first stack of papers she pulled out were written in English, in a hasty, shaky shorthand that looked like neither her father's nor Kaolinite's. It looked to be about resonance fields and how to assemble a device. She put it back in the box and then walked her fingers a little farther back. The next paper she pulled out was in Japanese, in writing she recognized as being Kaolinite's.

"April 6, 1993

"Hotaru appears to be rejecting M-9 implantation again. Immune system reaction, fever, coughing, etc. probably in tandem with psychic rejection. Fainting spells slt. increase in frequency but due to diff. cause. Rec. dosage of 'Golden Dawn' opiates to increase psionic susceptibility of host.

"April 9, 1993

"Hotaru no longer actively rejecting M-9, physical illness worsened. Rejection could be due to rare illness or coincidental with infection. Patient on bed rest and given sm. amt analgesic for pain and steroids for respiratory function, but more adequate dosage would likely result in severe side effects mixed w/ Golden Dawn.

"I wish there was something more I could do about her pain."

Hotaru's head jerked to the side like she'd been caught on a fishhook, and she slid the paper back into the box without looking at it. There was more on the page, and probably some stuff they would find useful, but Hotaru couldn't read any more. She remembered that time, when she was out of school with the flu for an entire week and thought she was either going to cough out her lungs or puke out her stomach but either way some of her insides were coming out. She remembered how her father had to find a 'special medicine' to treat it and how worried they were when she got worse. She remembered her father saying she couldn't take any more painkillers even though the ones she had weren't enough. And she remembered Kaolinite walking down the hall past her room, mockingly imitating her whimpers of pain.

Above all else, she just wasn't ready to deal with the idea that Kaolinite could have cared about her at all.

"I found some papers here, they look like they could be useful," Hotaru said after a few moments to regain her composure. "Notes and stuff."

"Well that's good," Donna responded, "because I think they got your dad's computer from where we left it and the power supply looks like it exploded." She kicked the beige box with black streaks she referred to, and walked over to the file box. She glanced at the first paper in there, laughed, and spoke into the walkie-talkie. "Hey Phil, some of these are yours! Did you leave your notes behind at Tokyo U with the Doctor's computer?"

"It's a good thing I did," his voice crackled back, "Because if they'd been in the car they probably would have been torched when you crashed it into a monster!"

"Oh yeah, like you would have dealt with it so much better. 'Quick, let's see if this mall has a Crate & Barrel, we need more chairs to throw at it!'"

Before long they had packed up all the equipment they thought they would need, a couple things that they didn't knwo what they were but were small enough to throw in, as well as Hotaru's lamps and some paperback books someone must have found suspicious. Most of the stuff in the room was left behind. A lot of it was equipment involved in the creation of daimons, and they had no use for that. The rest were random, ordinary objects from around Hotaru's home. Coasters, candlesticks, throw pillows, a TV remote, 'drinking bird' toys, a candy dish with a butterscotch welded to the bottom with spit.

They managed to get almost all they wanted to bring to fit on the handtruck, but one of the boxes of lamps was too big and Bill was going to carry it out separately. On her way out, Donna stopped and turned back to Hotaru. "Okay, Miss Tomoe, are you sure this is everything from the house you want? We're probably not going to make another trip."

Hotaru looked around the room and thought about it. She recognized each object in there, she knew where it went and what it did and who used it. She remembered her father imitating that drinking bird at the dinner table by dipping his nose into a glass of water. She remembered Kaolinite putting that butterscotch in her mouth and then trying to cooly slide it back in the bowl when Dad mentioned they were for company only. She remembered fainting on the living room floor and waking up with that throw pillow under her head and an afghan draped over her body. Every one of these objects was a part of her home, her history.

"No," she said, holding back a tear. "No, I don't want any of them."

Donna shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said, and dragged the handtruck behind her out of the room. Hotaru followed, then Bill came last. He turned and lifted a foot to close the door, and when he did an arm emerged from the shadow the door was casting on the wall, even though there was no way a man could have been standing in that space. It was wearing a black suit, and it was holding a gun pointed at Bill's head. When Hotaru looked closely, she saw the hand had a thumb on each side.

The man to whom the arm belonged stepped out of the shadow as if he were walking through a doorway. His face was hidden by a black hat and sunglasses, but they couldn't mask his predatory smile. His skin was white like the underbelly of a shark, and Hotaru thought if she rubbed it she would cut her hands.

"You picked a real bad day to screw with me, civilian," said the suited man in a tone of voice that could have matched Kaolinite for haughty superiority.

"Then tell me a good day," responded Bill with a far less submissive tone than one usually finds in people with guns to their heads. "I can come back and screw with you then. Is Wednesday alright?"

"You're a real witty guy, William Scott Wheeler. Drop the box and put your hands in the air." He turned his head almost imperceptibly towards Hotaru and Donna. "That goes for the both of you, too. Hands in the air."

Donna put her hands up, but Bill didn't drop the box. "Okay, you know my name, that's reeeeeal intimidating. What are you, ATF?"

"He called you by your full name, Bill," sniggered Donna, "Maybe he's your mother."

"No, miss Donna Kimberly Truitt, I am not his mother and I am not with the ATF," the man in black said with his aim rock-steady at Bill's temple, "and the thought you just had where you could get me to shift my aim by insulting me is one of the most childishly idiotic things I have ever heard. I'm with a far higher agency of law enforcement than either of you can think of, not that it matters."

Bill's arms were starting to shake, the box was heavy. Hotaru worried about the lamps breaking if he dropped it and then thought that made her a horrible person. "Oh, so now I get to be on two watchlists? That's great. Do you guys have a file on me too? Because it's great to know I scare you so damn much."

The man in black chuckled mirthlessly. "You aren't on our watchlist because if you were, you'd be dead now. And you don't have a file because everything about all you Hoffmann Institute lackeys are written all over your damaged, insecure egos. Like how Donna here hates anyone who might imply she wasn't good enough to murder South American dictators for the CIA. She hasn't shaved her legs since Wednesday and she's terrified someone will notice. And how your little friend here..." He turned to Hotaru slightly and stopped midsentence, and the corners of his lips -- fat, pale leeches of lips -- turned down. "Your friend here, is..." but he didn't get any farther that time either. It was as if he'd been reading off a script and turned the page only to find a blank sheet of paper.

Hotaru stared at him and even behind his sunglasses she knew he was staring back into her eyes. "She's a what, G-Man?" asked Bill through scattered grunts and straining noises. "Oh some on, you've... nggh, got to give us at least a name! Other... errrgh... otherwise you're the worst party magician ever!"

Hotaru wondered what the man would do. His hand was shaking and he was now scowling at her, and something about her offended him very, very much. She wasn't that suprised. She wasn't holding her Silence Glaive, but it was always in her hand, all she had to do was grab for it. Could she close the distance to him before he shot Bill in the head? Not likely. Better she get shot instead of him, then at least she'd die saving someone's life. If Chibi-Usa ever found out about it, it was at least something noble, something she could say reflected well on her. Hotaru moved her feet a bit farther apart, raised her fists, and glowered at the man in black, looking as intimidating as she could without making a sudden movement that would make him pull the trigger.

The man scowled, baring his teeth, and the shaking of his hand was audible now. Finally he shouted "You can't HIDE from me, you dumb tart!" and whipped his arm around to point at her. Bill shouted in suprise and dropped the box, the glass inside made a tinkling noise as it shattered. The man fired three times, one clipping her in the elbow, one striking her in the ribs, and one hitting her directly in the heart. She screamed in pain and fell backwards, from the shock rather than the force of impact. It HURT, it hurt like hell, like someone with steel-toed boots had taken a running start, jumped, and kicked her in the chest with both feet. She could still feel the force of the impact all over her chest, and she struggled to find her breath. It actually took her a moment to notice she wasn't bleeding.

Bill threw his shoulder into the man's armpit and tried to tackle him to the floor. The man grunted, threw his arms over Bill's body to try to get some control... and then, suddenly, he shifted. He didn't move, per se, but she shifted, and instead of being thrown to the ground by a man tackling him and desperately grabbing at him for control, he was crouching in preparation of a man tackling him and had his arms out to redirect his momentum. Bill was thrown over the man in black's head before he knew what was going on and collided ass-first with the opposite wall of the hallway. The man in black spun back to face Donna, and found the left lens of his sunglasses touching the barrel of her .45.

"You shot a little GIRL, you son of a BITCH!" she screamed, and squeezed the trigger. The man in black spun and flew backwards, his hat and sunglasses thrown from his head, but rather than blood what sprayed from him looked like black ink that vanished within moments. His head was bald and misshapen but unscarred, and once he hit the wall he turned back to face Donna and grinned. He had two rows of teeth and his eyes were pupil-less orbs of milky white. She was shocked for a moment, then lowered her gun to fire again but this time he was quicker than she and he fired two rounds into her gut. She dropped her gun and with a frozen expression of suprise, she fell to her knees, then onto her face in front of him.

"Now who's the bitch?" he snarled.

Hotaru didn't feel rage at seeing this, and she didn't feel joy either. She didn't feel anything. She just knew with a cold, dispassionate logic, that the man in black had to be destroyed, and that she was the only one there who could do it, and therefore she was going to destroy him. She pulled herself upright with the Silence Glaive, leaving Bill's coat in a heap on the floor. Without admonishing the man for his crimes, without swearing vengeance, without a grunt or a roar or a whisper Hotaru charged him with the Glaive at her side at a perfect height to slice the head off his shoulders. He turned at the sound of her footsteps just as she closed the distance to him, too late to move or stop her. She dragged the blade across his form... and nothing happened. It was as if she'd slashed at the reflection on a pool of water. She spun on one heel, brought the weapon around for another strike, but the man delivered a roundhouse kick to her chest that sent her crashing into a wall.

"You just don't know when to stay down, do you little girl?" he said with a malicious smile, and he trained his gun as her even as he stepped backward and stomped on Bill's stomach as he was trying to get up. "But I'm sure even a girl like you can see it's game over now. You're coming with me, where I'm certain we can find much better uses for you. Oh, but first..." He walked over to Donna's bleeding, shuddering form, leaned over, and grabbed the Sailor V walkie-talkie off her belt. He frowned, wiped off some blood on his pants leg, then slid it on the floor towards Hotaru. "I want you to call your Hoffmann friends and tell them to come up here. You've already caused enough trouble for me and I don't want to have to go tracking them down.

Hotaru had no idea who this man was or what he wanted. He was probably the man whom everyone here thought worked for the FBI, but that didn't tell Hotaru anything. He wasn't a daimon, he wasn't a Death Buster. He was some other kind of horrible thing Hotaru never saw before, a man of shadows and malice whose evil had nothing to do with the Pharaoh 90. Donna wouldn't have been here if not for Hotaru, but the man would have, and would he have shot someone else and left them to bleed out on the carpet? Probably.

Hotaru said to herself before that it didn't matter who she was with, that it would be bad either way, but now she's realized she was wrong. She wants nothing to do with this grinning, hateful shadow-man. She picked up the walkie-talkie with one hand, kept her other on the handle of the Glaive, and never took her eyes off him.

"This is Jefferson Airplane to Lead Zeppelin," she said, slowly and evenly. "Come in, Lead Zeppelin."

"You're Jefferson Starship, not Airplane," said Nadine from the other end. "And what's going on up there? We thought we heard gunshots."

"Oh, was I Jefferson Starship?" she said, "I was confused. I know they used to be Jefferson Airplane." She was stalling for time, trying to think of something, some way to escape, some weapon she hadn't tried. She knew that Moon and Uranus and Neptune and probably all the others had special, magical attacks. Did she? Maybe she only had the Glaive, but maybe not; she didn't really know what muscle she would be flexing to make that kind of thing...

"Whatever, whatever, it isn't important. Are you okay? Were there gunshots? What's going on up there -- the security guys have to be suspicious by now."

She tried focusing on the man in black, visibly displeased by the pace of her conversation, and willing him to be struck down by a bolt of energy. And she felt something, but it wasn't enough. She was trying to force something out of her that just didn't have the power to escape, and she felt like someone who has begun to vomit and then stops when it's halfway up their throat. "No, no gunfire," she said, but it gave her an idea. She curled her fingers around the handle of the Glaive, imagining it was a rifle she could point at the man in black's head. She shifted its position and made it look like she was moving her elbow to be more comfortable on the floor but she ended up with the blade digging into the carpet of the hallway and the handle pointed at the man's chest -- she couldn't get it high enoughg for the head. She felt the weapon quiver in her hand and that energy came a little further along, but it wasn't coming out yet. "No gunfire, but we do need you to come up here. We found something here and we can't move it on our own."

"What something, what is it? Why are you talking so funny?"

"I don't know what it's called," she said evenly into the microphone, and instantly she knew that if she didn't know what it was called she'd have to make up a name for it to work. "It looks like one of those... a sat... A Saturn shot, no, it's, it's, a Saturn... SATURN SILENCER!"

There was a low 'WHUD' and the Glaive shook in her hands. She was expecting to be shot again but the attack took the man in black by suprise and caught him before he could fire a shot. The attack wasn't even visible to Hotaru's eyes as more than a distortion like the heat over asphalt, but it was solid enough when it connected with the man in black's stomach to send him flying backwards, dropping his gun. Hotaru's hand was numb from the vibration of the weapon, and the rest of her body ached from the force of various impacts, but she found her way to her feet with the Glaive pointed at the man's head before he could scramble back to the gun. "SATURN..." she yelled, more confident this time, but before she finished the incantation the man rolled to the side and he was gone, fallen into a shadow on the wall like it was a hole in the floor.

Hotaru kept her hand on the Glaive in case he came back, but rushed to Donna's side. She was still breathing, but it was shallow and pained. Hotaru turned her over and laid her hand on Donna's wounds, hoping she wasn't too late. Her hand glowed, and Hotaru felt a twinge of pain in her own stomach, and the wounds didn't heal all the way but the bleeding appeared to stop.

Donna coughed and raised her head, meekly. She wanted to think of something witty, something along the lines of it being easier to list all the superpowers Hotaru didn't have than the ones she did, but instead she just said "Thanks, Miss Tomoe."

∙ ∙ ∙

Though it was late and school would be back in session tomorrow morning, the Senshi all convened once more at the Hikawa shrine to relate the information they had gained. All the Senshi save three, at least; Makoto was already asleep, Setsuna was no longer working as part of their team, and Hotaru's location was unknown but very close by.

"So once we found out it was dark matter," Ami said, "we did a loop around the city on the subway taking readings. I couldn't get much more precision, though, even for the Mercury Computer dark matter detection is a tricky business. I can't say more than that it's underground, somewhere deep, and there's a lot of it." She shook her head. "But I have no idea what it does, or how we can get there, or even if we can -- I know there are tunnels under Tokyo but the dark matter's interfering with the ability to scan and map them."

Haruka squinted one eye and cocked her head. "And we can't teleport in if we don't know where it is and it's an energy source we can't actually see, so that's out."

Ami sighed. "Even if we could, I have no idea if we would want to. Science has no idea what exposure to dark matter would do to a human being, but something that ignores that many laws of physics can't be safe."

Rei grimaced. "Pluto does. Or he does while he's using her. He's trying to find his way to it as well..." She bit her lip. "No. He's already there. It's not the material he wants, it's the gateway that brought it here. He can't open it yet, but they're working on it."

"Whatever the Pharaoh wants it for, we know we have to stop him." There was a couple seconds of silence after Minako said that.

Usagi turned over to her boyfriend and would-be daughter. Chibi-Usa's eyes were a bit read and streaked from tears, but she put on a brave face when her mother looked at her. "That was what we did. Did you two find anything at all at Hotaru's house?"

Mamoru shook his head. "Someone got there before we did. When we got there there were two government agents tied up in the living room with the phone cords; they said they'd cleaned the house out because they thought the Death Busters were terrorists and all of their equipment was evidence. The two we found were left behind to guard the place, and got attacked a few hours before we arrived by some people who wanted to know where the materials confiscated from the house were." He grimaced, thinking carefully. "They could have been more Death Busters, trying to salvage the Professor's equipment, but... they left the two alive. They shot one of them in the leg, but then they cleaned and bandaged the wound, and got them something to drink and asked what TV channel they wanted to watch while they were tied up. And from their descriptions, Hotaru was already with them; I don't know if she was a prisoner or not."

Chibi-Usa started to say something, then thought better of it and looked off to the side.

"Where were they going?" asked Usagi, "Do we know where Hotaru is?"

"We went to the building they were headed to," Mamoru continued, "but we were too far behind. When we got there there were police cars everywhere and men in black suits telling us this was FBI business and we should stay out, but it looked like the people had already left. The two men at the house, they said the FBI was in on this too."

"That's interesting," said Haruka, "because when we went to see the ruins of the Mugen Academy, that's exactly what we got. Pale men, dark suits, 'FBI business, stay out of it'. I mean, Michiru and I are -- were, students there, we have a legitemate interest in what's going on, but the only thing they told us was how it was none of our business."

"And," added Michiru, "that's what the people at the mall who were asking about Hotaru said, that they were with the FBI, and that they already had her."

"But none of them are with the FBI at all," said Minako, "because they only handle things inside the United States. If anyone from the US was out here, it would be the CIA." She looked around the room, slowly. "Apparently, I am the only person in Japan who knows this."

Rei's grandfather didn't knock, but when the door slid open everyone stopped to look at him. "Rei, do you know where the extension cords are?"

Rei took a moment to switch from 'Sailor Senshi debriefing about threat to all life on planet' mode to 'Help Grandfather remember where he puts things' mode. "They're... In the tool shed, aren't they? They should be behind that leaf blower that doesn't work. Why do you need extension cords at one o'clock in the morning?"

Her grandfather looked at his wrist even though he knew damn well he wasn't wearing a watch. "Oh, it is pretty late, isn't it? Shouldn't you girls be in bed? It's a school day tomorrow, you know." He waited, not sure what kind of response he was waiting for. "Anyway, those TV producers just got here and they're setting up, but they lost some of the luggage with their equipment in it. I knew we had a couple extension cords laying around somewhere." He turned away without closing the door, said "Don't stay up too much later, girls!" and walked off. Mamoru sighed, walked over to the door, and closed it.

"TV producers?" asked Usagi.

Rei waved her hand. "It's some stupid... Apparently in America there's this show called 'American Spookhouse' about haunted houses, and a few years ago they did a special on ghostly places in Tokyo, which they imaginatively called 'Tokyo Spookhouse', and the shrine was one of the places they profiled." She sighed. "Apparently, ratings are low again so they want to do a followup episode and clutter this place with cameras and microphones and cables and gaffer's tape all over again. Meanwhile there's daimons running around the city and they want to listen to tape hiss and hear otherworldy voices."

"Oh," said Minako. "Did you get to be on TV?"

"They... interviewed me and Grandfather for a couple hours each, but they cut my interview entirely and Grandfather's down to thirty seconds. And the man they had overdubbing his voice sounded ridiculous."

∙ ∙ ∙

Hotaru lost consciousness before they left the building, and she had no further part in the Hoffmann agents' escape or sanctuary that night. Her sleep was deep, almost as deep as death, but not nearly so peaceful. She dreamed many things that night, events and places she cannot remember save to know they frighten her.

She was trapped, in a dark room somewhere deep underground. She was running, but she knew not to where, and this place was like a maze. All she knew was that she was being chased, and if she was caught, she would die. She ran, and ran, and ran, groping blindly in the darkness, slipping and falling and crashing into walls many times. She was certain she was going to be caught when she turned and saw Chibi-Usa, illuminated by a soft and gentle light that shone from within her. Chibi-Usa beckoned her to come with her, and she took Hotaru's hand. Hotaru fled, following with Chibi-Usa, and now she knew if she was caught Chibi-Usa would be killed as well. Hotaru coughed and wheezed, unable to cope with the physical exertion, and she knew Chibi-Usa would be so much faster without her and yet she stayed behind to help her friend to safety because she was a good human being and that's what good human beings do. Hotaru knew she wouldn't be able to do the same for her because Hotaru wasn't a good human being.

After what seemed like years of running and terror they reached the shaft of light that was the exit and found blessed freedom. They were outsude now, in a verdant garden in the courtyard of an equisite marble palace. The night was bright and cloudless and the Earth hung above them in the sky.

Chibi-Usa turned and gasped, pointing at Hotaru. "Hotaru! You're naked!" she cried, and her expression was one of horror rather than embarassment. Hotaru felt herself blushing, and put her arms up to cover herself... only when she looked down, there was no need. She wasn't naked, she was wearing the same dress she always wore, silken and as black as the cold nothingness between the stars.

"Cover yourself, Hotaru!" Chibi-Usa shrieked. "We can all see what you are underneath!" She held out a mirror, and Hotaru knew what she would see when she looked into it. There would be a malicious, wicked smile across her dark purple lips and a black star would be emblazoned on her forehead. She took the mirror into her hand, and...

And she woke up. Her body was aching all over, her head splitting, her back sore. She thought she was blind for a moment until she realized someone had put a towel over her eyes. She removed it, wincing when she moved, and glanced around. She was on a bedroll, on the floor in a room with paper walls. Around her she saw Bill, Nadine, Phil, and Donna laying on the floor, though Nadine was stirring as Hotaru did. There were piles of papers and half-disassembled equipment, and all around them were her lamps and a spider's web of extension cords and power strips they were plugged in to. Some of them were cracked and held together with masking tape, none of them had shades, all of them were turned on.

In the open doorway stood a figure, though the sunlight could not silhouette him as it was brighter in here than it was out there. He pounded on the doorframe since he could not knock on a paper door, but Hotaru was awake before he made the noise. He absolutely stank of alcohol, the odor assaulted her, burned her nostrils, it was so thick she could almost see it.

What Nadine saw standing in the doorway was an aging Japanese man of average height (which is to say, short), wearing a rumpled dress shirt and cheap slacks, a loose tie, and black plastic glasses; his hair was greying and his face creased by worry lines. He looked uneasy but irate.

"Oh my God, Nakami," she said to the Director of the Hoffmann Institute, "did you take a bath in bourbon?"

What Hotaru saw was a short, humanoid form with slightly purplish-grey skin and too-thin arms and legs. He was naked save for what looked like a loin cloth around his hips and a tie hanging loosely around his neck. His head was bald and too big for his neck, his mouth a tiny slit at the bottom of his chin, and his eyes were great black featureless ovals.

"It's ten in the morning!" said the little grey alien. "What the hell are all of you still in bed for?"

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

NEW ARCANE MAGIC FX SKILL: PLANETARY SORCERY

Name Stat Cost Planetary Sorcery 14 Planet's Aegis CON 4 Energy Blast WIL 4 Matter Blast WIL 4 Energy Control WIL 4 Matter Control WIL 4 Planet's Veil PER 3 2 Variable Powers ∙

PLANETARY SORCERY (Cost 14, Arcane Magic FX Broad Skill)  
This skill cannot be used untrained.

"Planetary Sorcery" is the name given to a set of arcane magical disciplines said to draw on a planet's "star seed" by attuning it to the "star seed" that is said to reside inside each sentient being in the universe. This grants great strength and resilience to the person so attuned, a chosen champion who in turn uses that power to defend the planet and its inhabitants from extraterrestrial magics. Many species have independently discovered this magic, suggesting it is a natural development of all sentient species, but the most skilled practicioners are generally agreed to be the humans of the ancient kingdom known as the Silver Millennium. Practicioners of this form of magic are known as "Senshi", the Japanese word for "warrior" or "soldier", as they were referred to in the Silver Millennium. Almost all Senshi are female, though males are not unknown -- Sailor Earth was a male who went by the name 'Tuxedo Kamen', the Senshi of the T'sa Cluster are of both genders, and it is speculated that if the gardhyi practice planetary sorcery, their Senshi would likely be male as no gardhyi females have ever been observed. The position of a planet's senshi (a title generally referred to as "Sailor Planet Name", the origins of this name are unclear) is passed down generationally, either by heredity or bequest. FX Talents of Planetary Sorcery are possible, usually in societies where the position of Senshi is inherited, though incredibly rare. There is never more than one Senshi of a single planet at a time, not counting FX Talents or incidents involving time-travel.

To utilize almost all of their powers, an FX Adept using Planetary Sorcery must first transform into their "Senshi Form" using what is known as a "Sailor Transformation". This transformation is flashy and dazzling while in progress but actually 'transforms' very little about the Adept's physical appearance. The most obvious change is that the Adept's clothing vanishes and is replaced by their uniform, usually a stylized version of what they consider a scholar's garb to be, and different for each planet even within the same solar system. (This rather defeats the purpose of a uniform, but let's not dwell on that.) This transformation takes a full round to accomplish, during which no other actions can be taken, and is accomplished by calling upon the name of the planet from which the Senshi draws power. The specific form of this invocation varies, from "Venus Star Power, Make Up!" to "O Sheya, bestow on me your gift that I may tend the land and guide they who hunt upon it," to "Kurg! WAR!" and many other forms besides. This transformation is usually accomplished with the use of a magical focus device, a wand or talisman engraved with something representing the planet from which power is drawn. If no such device is present the transformation can be accomplished with the expenditure of an FX Energy Point, and in neither case does the action require a skill check.

Once in "Senshi form", the Adept has full access to her power pool and any and all FX Skills purchased as "Active" are up and running. The Senshi may spend her FX Energy pool freely, since her transformation comes from another source of power, she won't turn back even if her personal power supply runs dry. The transformation is however limited by time: at the end of the second hour of a Sailor Transformation and each subsequent hour thereafter, the Senshi must make a Stamina -- Endurance check or suffer 1 point of fatigue damage. As most Senshi have below-average constitutions, this makes two to three hours the limit on transformations, although Sailor Kurg can run around for days in her transformed form. This time is cumulative, and transforming for 90 minutes, detransforming, and changing back for another 90 minutes won't get you around it, but the timer does reset after about six hours of sleep -- for a human, or a proportional amount for alien species that do not usually sleep eight hours a day (T'sa only stay still that long when they're dead). It is not quite known why this happens, as the Transformation doesn't feel exhausting at all and the Star Seed of a planet ought to have enough energy to sustain the transformation indefinitely; one theory states that planetary Star Seeds have vast amounts of energy but very narrow throughput, the energy required to maintain a Sailor Transformation slowly increases as time goes on and outstrips the Star Seed's narrow bandwidth and the Senshi must make up the difference with power from her own personal Star Seed. Whatever the cause, it's a phenomena all Senshi should be aware of.

The Sailor Transformation ends either when the Senshi loses consciousness with two or more Fatigue damage, or with no remaining Stun damage, or when the Senshi wishes it to end. The Senshi can end the transformation at any time, this does not require an action, and her normal clothing reappears on her body as her Senshi uniform momentarily appears as shredded gossamer. Her "active" skills all shut off and she loses access to her FX abilities. When the transformation is ended in this way, the Sailor Transformation cannot be re-attempted for another 15 or so minutes. (18 minutes 36 seconds, but who's counting?)

Characters may at creation choose one Planetary Sorcery skill they wish to be able to use outside of their Senshi form; they may do so by permanently increasing the base cost of that skill by one. "Active" skills may not be chosen in this way.

Each Senshi has access to Planet's Aegis, Planet's Veil, one type of Matter Control or Energy Control, and one type of Matter Blast or Energy Blast. In addition to this, each Senshi gets two additional FX skills that are counted as Planetary Sorcery skills but are chosen from other FX or Psionic skill lists, paying the same costs and adhering to the same restrictions that skill normally has. Skills that require physical sacrifices, such as Hemomancy and Diabolism skills, do not require the literal and visible shedding of blood but will inflict damage on their caster all the same. These skills along with the forms of Matter/Energy Blast/Control should all fit thematically with the Senshi's planet, either culturally or physically, but note there does not have to be a universal cultural theme among them. Sailor Jupiter, for instance, has Energy Blast (Electricity) because Jupiter was the Roman god of lightning and Matter Control (Wood) because Jupiter's name in Japanese means "wood star". Also, some types of Matter or Energy control may be best simulated by another skill entirely, and these should be swapped in for their normal skill choices even if it isn't one of their two "bonus skills". Sailor Aleer's Energy Control (Data) makes a lot more sense as Telepathy -- Datalink; Sailor Saturn's status as "bringer of the end" could make sense as Energy Control (Entropy) but causes a hell of a lot less headaches and balance issues as Enochian -- Unravel Enchantment.

PLANET'S AEGIS (cost 4, CON)  
Active or 1 FX Energy Point This skill cannot be used untrained.

The armor and shield of a planet's guardian, the magical pavise that protects an otherwise-frail Senshi from harm. The word "planet" in this ability's name is always replaced with the name of the planet the Adept champions; Sailor Pluto has "Pluto's Aegis", Sailor Sheya has "Sheya's Aegis", et cetera.

While activated, this power provides the Adept d6-1(LI)/d4(HI)/d6-1(En) armor of Good toughness against High Impact and Energy attacks, and Ordinary toughness against Low Impact attacks. It can only be activated in Senshi form and has a duration of 10 minutes; however it can be purchased as being "always on" in Senshi form for the permanent expenditure of 3 FX Energy Points. It cannot be bestowed on others.

(X) Increased Effect: At rank 4, the armor provided increases to d6/d4+1/d6. At rank 8, it increases again to d6+2/d8/d6+2, and at rank 12 the armor's toughness becomes Amazing against HI and En and Good against LI attacks.

ENERGY BLAST (cost 4, WIL)

This power is identical to "Energy -- Energy Blast" in chapter 5 of "Beyond Science: A Guide To FX" (TSR 11432), save that there is an additional rank benefit, and extremely liberal interpretations of "energy" are allowed.

() Non-Lethal Attack: At rank 4, the user of this skill may voluntarily downgrade the damage it deals to Stun, after upgrading or downgrading damage based on the attack's intensity and defender's toughness. This can be done at the time of the attack, or the Adept can establish conditions under which the downgrade occurs, such as attacking civilians under some mind-altering effect.

MATTER BLAST (cost 4, WIL)  
1 FX Energy Point This skill cannot be used untrained.

This power is almost identical to "Energy Blast", though obviously it focuses on matter instead of energy. A type of matter, such as "water", "air", "metal", etc. Virtual matter of is created or real matter assembled and given cohesion of a brief moment, then flung at an enemy. It deals d6w/d8w/d4m (HI/O) at a range of 60 meters and is opposed by the target's Dexterity resistance modifier. Like Energy Blast, its user may choose to downgrade damage to Stun at any time. A character may not know both Energy and Matter Blast at once.

(X) Increased Damage: At rank 4 the damage increases to d8w/d8+1w/d6m. At rank 8, the damage increases to d8+1w/d12w/d4+2m. At Rank 12, the damage improves to Good intensity.

() Non-Lethal Attack: At rank 4, the user of this skill may voluntarily downgrade the damage it deals to Stun, after upgrading or downgrading damage based on the attack's intensity and defender's toughness. This can be done at the time of the attack, or the Adept can establish conditions under which the downgrade occurs, such as attacking civilians under some mind-altering effect.

ENERGY CONTROL (cost 4, WIL)

This power is identical to "Energy -- Energy Control" in "Beyond Science", save that extremely liberal interpretations of "energy" are allowed.

MATTER CONTROL (Cost 4, WIL)  
1 or 2 FX Energy Points This skill cannot be used untrained.

Similar to Energy Control, only for a specified type of matter. Classical elements (air, earth, water) and more specific materials (stone, metal, wood) are acceptable choices for elements, as are even odder things (dark matter), but things like "liquids" or "solids" are too broad. Usage of this skill grants something like a more precise but more limited telekinesis, the ability to shape and control amounts of the chosen element within a 30 meter radius for the duration of 1 round. Moving materials into the shapes of machines that require small moving parts is all but impossible and requires an Intelligence feat check at a +2 penalty at best -- shaping metal into a gun, for example, is not possible no matter how good your roll. Control of an element cannot be used directly against another living thing: an Adept with Matter Control (Metal) could not suck the iron in a person's blood out through his pores, nor could one with Matter Control (Water) dessicate him with a snap of her fingers, nor could one with Matter Control (Air) asphyxiate him by sucking the oxygen from his lungs, etc.

Alternately, a character may spend 2 FX Energy Points on activating this skill to conjure up to 5 kg of their chosen material out of thin air, in a pre-chosen pattern if they so choose. Structure requirements must still be obeyed, so this cannot be used to conjure a firearm, but it could be used to make a sword, or a chain-whip with heart-shaped links. The conjured material lasts until dismissed by its summoner or its summoner uses this ability again. Materials that have been consumed do not get dismissed in this fashion -- breathing conjured air will not cause someone to collapse of anoxia when she summons more of it.

This ability can be used in concert with a Matter Blast of the same or compatible type to enhance that attack, like Energy Control can enhance an Energy Blast. A character may not know both Energy and Matter control at once.

PLANET'S VEIL (cost 3, PER)  
Active or 1 FX Energy Point This skill cannot be used untrained.

The means by which the Senshi hides among the population she protects, Planet's Veil is an illusion that is not an illusion. This mind-clouding affect does not alter the Adept's appearance in any way, but prevents those that observe her from recognizing that the Adept's Senshi form and the Adept's 'civilian' identity are the same person. Characters who have not been given a specific reason to think that the Adept's two identities are one and the same (and them having the exact same hair color, eye color, voice, and facial features don't count) make no roll to see through the ruse, and those who do have such reason make an Awareness -- Perception or Awareness -- Intuition check opposing the Adept's Planetary Sorcery -- Planet's Veil check (requiring no conscious effort on the Adept's part and disregarding any conditional penalties the Adept may be suffering due to wounds, fatigue, other FX powers, and the like). If he gets a greater degree of success than the Adept, he pierces the cognitive illusion and is no longer affected by it. If the Adept has a greater degree of success, or they tie, then he shakes off his suspicion and concludes they cannot be the same person -- though some new event or evidence might give him another chance to break the spell.

Planet's Veil lasts for 10 minutes per activation or for the permanent expenditure of 2 FX Energy Points it can be "always on" when in Senshi form and "always off" when not. The power need not be active at any given time someone is trying to find a Senshi's secret identity; whenever the power is "off" the adept has Identity A, whenever it is "on" the adept has Identity B, and at all times the magic inhibits people from seeing they are the same person. A person who sees the Adept on multiple occasions with her Hidden Identity deactivated will recognize her as the same person, and a person who sees the Adept on multiple occasions with her Hidden Identity active will recognize it is the same person, but one who sees the Adept sometimes with and sometimes without the Planet's Veil thinks he is seeing two different people. This effect extends to recordings made of the Senshi, people looking at the video or photographs of her with her Planet's Veil on can't recognize her as the same person as with it off.

Anyone who sees through the Planet's Veil is never affected by it again, though he does not become immune to the Planet's Veil effects of other Senshi. Anyone who witnesses a Senshi transforming into her civilian guise gets to make an immediate Awareness -- Perception check to see through the disguise, and anyone who sees an Adept's civilian form transform into a Senshi pierces the disguise automatically. Like Planet's Aegis, this skill is never purchased as "Planet's Veil"; the word "Planet" is always replaces with the name of the planet represented.

What follows is a list of Sailor Senshi and their powers. The Senshi's title is listed, and then in parentheses that Senshi's species. If powers are listed for Senshi who do not appear to have used those powers, obviously those Senshi felt their Achievement Points would be better spent on other skills.

Sailor Mercury (Human): Energy Blast (Cold), Energy Control (Cold), Metaconscious -- Genius, Metaconscious -- Super Intelligence

Sailor Venus (Human): Energy Blast (Light), Matter Control (Metal), Hemomancy -- Blood Debt [inverted, penalty to hostile actions, bonus to PER-based skills, Mesmerism -- Befriend

Sailor Earth (Human): Energy Blast (Kinetic), Energy Control (Courage) [Monotheism -- Blessing, Brick -- Super Strength, ESP -- Sensitivity

Sailor Moon (Human): Energy Blast (Light), Energy Control (Purity) [Monotheism -- Exorcise, Monotheism -- Heal, Metaconscious -- Super Personality

Sailor Mars (Human): Energy Blast (Fire), Energy Control (Fire), Pyromancy -- Incendiary Seal, Monotheism -- Vision

Sailor Jupiter (Human): Energy Blast (Electricity), Matter Control (Wood), Brick -- Invulnerability (Electricity), Druidism -- Surge of Greenery

Sailor Saturn (Human): Energy Blast (Sonic), Energy Control (Entropy) [Enochian -- Unravel Enchantment, Hemomancy -- Lifeblood, Energy -- Energy Field

Sailor Uranus (Human): Matter Blast (Air), Matter Control (Air), Brick -- Super Strength, Movement -- Lightning Speed

Sailor Neptune (Human): Matter Blast (Water), Matter Control (Water), ESP -- Precognition, Brick -- Life Support

Sailor Pluto (Human): Matter Blast (Dark Matter), Matter Control (Dark Matter), Psychoportation -- Duplicate, Psychoportation -- Timeslip

Sailor Fraal: The Greys have not seen their homeworld in generations and it is not believed they ever practiced planetary sorcery on it.

Sailor Aleer (Mechalus): Energy Blast (Electricity), Energy Control (Data) [Telepathy -- Datalink, Metaconscious -- Genius, Chi -- Focus

Sailor Kurg (Weren): Energy Blast (Kinetic), Matter Control (Stone), Brick -- Impact Conversion, Chi -- Power Strike

Sailor Taasa (T'sa): Energy Blast (Fire), Energy Control (Electricity), Movement -- Fusillade, Metaconscious -- Hyper Learning

Sailor Sheya (Sesheyan): Matter Blast (Air), Energy Control -- Darkness [Shadow -- Call Shadows, Shamanism -- Dreamwalking, Druidism -- Kinship of Beasts

Sailor Bluefall (Deepfallen): Matter Blast (Water), Energy Control (Sonic), Body Modification -- Phasing, Mesmerism -- Befriend

Sailor Yellow Sky (Human): Matter Blast (Acid), Matter Control (Air), Brick -- Life Support, Alienism -- Bend Space

Sailor Penates (Human): Energy Blast (Cold), Energy Control (Entropy) [Enochian -- Unravel Enchantment, Telepathy -- Drain, Hemomancy -- Bloodlust

Sailor Lison (Mechalus): Matter Blast (Dark Matter), Matter Control (Metal), Druidism -- Wield the Ley Line, Brick -- Life Support

Sailor Gardhyi: Gardhyi obviously know of arcane magic FX and it is not at all improbable they have discovered planetary sorcery. Normal gardhyi can call shadows, throw bolts of elemental darkness, and make jumps of 75 light years WITHOUT A STARSHIP. And those are the regular ones. If there is a Sailor Gardhyi Homeworld, pray you never meet him. 


	6. Double Take

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

As little as they may like it and as little sense as it makes, the Senshi have school today. Things are returning to normal in the Juuban district and while that doesn't mean there are no monsters attacking, it does mean everyone is ignoring them. Rei, Minako, Usagi, Ami, Mamoru, and Chibi-Usa all left the Hikawa Shrine operating on five hours or less of sleep. Haruka and Michiru, however, got to sleep in and meander on out to the bus stop after a full night's rest; having one's school explode three times in a 24-hour period has its perks.

"I still don't trust her." Haruka played with her collar, trying to work out the crease she'd made when she slept on it last night. "You saw how easily she gave up the Chalice, and it's not like that was what caused Sailor Saturn to arrive, or the Pharaoh to be stopped. If it's taken control of Pluto the way it did the others, all it has to do is threaten to hurt her and Sailor Moon will open the gates of Hell herself."

"She's still a kid," said Michiru. Her hair was matted and lopsided and she was trying not to notice it until she could get back home and in her own bathroom. "She doesn't want to acknowledge that she can't save everyone all the time. And we don't have to trust her fully, but there's no reason we can't make use of her as a resource." She stopped to roll her neck back and forth and hear the bones crackle. "As long as we don't give her the opportunity to do something idiotic like that again, anyway."

Haruka sighed, shifted her weight from her tiptoes to her heels and back. "I know, I know. It's just something about her makes me want to punch her, you know? That way she acts like, like 'of course the easiest answer to arrive at is the correct one! I'd rather everyone on Earth be killed than me have to compromise my middle-school vision of morality!' And then we're the bad guys for not having our heads off in the clouds."

"Wow, somebody's cranky this morning." Haruka rolled her eyes at Michiru and scoffed. "Besides, you can't really hold too much of that against her. She is the reincarnated princess of a beautiful magical kingdom on the moon, you'd expect a certain level of childish idealism from someone with that background."

Haruka looked around the street for any sign of the bus they were waiting for. "Okay, this bus isn't going to come. After all we've done, I don't think a little walk is going to hurt us too much."

"And I was just saying to myself that I needed more pointless, impatient exercise."

The day was brisk but not cold, the winter air clean and crisp. The two lovers did not dawdle, but did not rush, there was not a whole lot they could hurry up and do. They continued their conversation, less to convey information and more to keep each other's mind off what was happening and they feared they couldn't stop.

"Yeah, well, for the whole 'beautiful moon kingdom' thing, I wouldn't say the ref's made his call on that one just yet. Setsuna still hasn't explained to me how they have a Sailor Pluto when Pluto wasn't discovered until, what, 1920? Or how they knew that Uranus and Neptune would be the Roman gods of the sea and sky before Rome existed to come up with those myths. Or how you and me were even supposed to have kingdoms on planets made out of gas."

"You haven't guessed?" Michiru half-smiled. "The answers are time travel, time travel, and..." she spread her fingers out and waved them back and forth, "...maaagic!"

Haruka chuckled in spite of herself. "Well, now we know why they never made a 'Trivial Pursuit: Silver Millennium Edition', there were only the three possible answers to everything."

"What's the third?"

Haruka stopped dead in her tracks. "Is that..." She squinted, then broke into a sprint. "It IS! It's my CAR!"

In front of them, parallel-parked between a Hyundai and a Volvo, its left front wheel riding over the curb, was the canary-yellow 1967 Toyota 2000GT open-top.

"Haruka! WAIT!" called Michiru, and she jumped after her lover to stop her before she reached the car. She caught Haruka by the neck and didn't take her to the ground, but stopped her advance. "Cars aren't dogs that find their way home. Someone left this here. It could have a tracking device... or a bomb."

"I know, I know that!" said Haruka, shrugging off Michiru's hold. "Did you think I was going to just jump in and do donuts in the middle of the street?" She paused and couldn't suppress a smile. "I'm just happy to know that, whatever else, whoever took it at least didn't wreck it up."

"Because that would be like defacing a national treasure."

"Exactly."

Haruka leaned over the door and inspected the car's interior. "Okay, someone left some plastic shrinkwrap, a sock, and... a rifle bullet on the floor in the backseat... but everything on the dashboard and steering column are intact, so if they put anything in, it wasn't through there..." She paused, hand on her chin, then pulled the hood release lever. The hood opened up, nothing exploded.

Haruka walked around the car to inspect its open front end. "Okay, I don't see any foreign objects attached to anything... let me get a closer look. She leaned in over the engine block, examined it a few moments, then inhaled deeply through her nose, visibly relishing the scent of oil and gasoline.

"You know, Haruka, if you aren't careful I might get the idea you love that car more than me."

Haruka patted the radiator like it was an infant to be consoled. "There there, baby. Don't listen to her. She's just jealous."

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 6: DOUBLE TAKE ∙ ∙ ∙

HIKAWA SHRINE GUEST ROOM TOKYO, JAPAN MONDAY FEBRUARY 21, 1995 9:58 AM

Nadine pulled the pillow out from underneath her head and threw it at Itohiro Nakami's head, he swatted it away easily. "Good freaking morning to you too, Nakami!"

Phil raised his head and looked around, despite the fact he was blindfolded. "Buh? Nakami here?"

Nadine saw Nakami put his hands on his hips and roll his eyes, but the Nakami Hotaru saw didn't have the visible pupils required for such a gesture. "Yeah, he's here, and he's brought all his people skills with him."

"Good. Tell 'im I hate him." With that, Phil's face fell back down into the pillow like a twenty-pound ball of lead.

"Nakami, Phil says he hates you."

Nakami let out an exasperated sigh. "Yeah, I heard him! What the Hell have you people been doing down here, people are saying there's attacks going on, some kind of sickness that makes people crazy, terrorists or monsters or terrorist monsters, they almost diverted my flight to Okinawa! And what is up with all these lights?"

Nadine looked at the lamp behind her and winced at the bright light. "Tomoe Hotaru collects antique lamps, we don't have the money for floodlights," she yawned so wide she thought she would unhinge her jaw, "and there may be people around here who can walk through shadows. I'd love to see your better plan."

Nakami looked to Nadine like he was going to say something else, but thought better of it. Hotaru doesn't know how to read alien body language. "Tomoe Hotaru, the girl... is she safe?"

"No, she's with us." Nadine pointed behind her. "That's Sailor Saturn right over there."

Nakami paused. "Who's... Sailor Saturn?"

Nadine cocked an eyebrow. "Tomoe Hotaru is. The girl? You know, the thirteen-year-old you wanted us to recruit because she can heal with a touch and do, like, badass kung-fu flips with a magic scythe?"

Hotaru was still too surprised at the alien in the room to be surprised by the fact Nadine used the word 'recruit' and not 'dissect'. Nakami blinked several times and put on an expression of supreme disbelief. "Donna told me that the girl encountered a demon named Isci ba Fan and that she was able to shake off his control. Where is this magic scythe stuff coming from?"

"From Saturn? I guess?" Now Nadine was confused too. "Wait, you're telling me you didn't know about this?"

"How could I possibly know about this? All I knew was that she resisted the attacks of the most powerful psionic entity on the planet, nobody ever told me about anything else!"

"We all figured that that was some clue to tell you that she was a magical space warrior!" She sat up now, waving her hands for emphasis. "It makes sense to tell us to recruit a magical space warrior! You seriously were going to tell us to hire a thirteen-year-old girl that you DIDN'T know came with magic powers?"

"She fought off Isci ba Fan's mental assault! That's more than enough to say she's exemplary!"

"Who in the hell is Isci ba Fan? And how did you know she..." Here Donna turned around to point at Hotaru for emphasis, and saw her eyes were open. "Oh. You're awake. Tomoe Hotaru, this is Itohiro Nakami, Director of the Hoffmann Institute. Itohiro Nakami, this is Tomoe Hotaru, Sailor of the, uh, Saturn."

"That isn't his name," said Hotaru. "He's trying to fool you. He's an alien."

Nakami looked shocked and took a step back. "Why did you --" He cut himself off, then started again in a more even tone. "Is there anywhere I could speak to Tomoe-san in private?"

"Oh come off it, Nakami, everyone at the Institute knows you're an alien already." Nadine rolled her eyes. "You don't need to keep pretending when we're around."

Nakami blinked and was, for several seconds, at a loss for words. Finally he stepped into the room and slid the door closed behind him, as if that would insulate the noise. "How did you know?" he whispered.

"Let's see. You've got the patents to, what, five different technologies used in every American home and yet we're always broke because you have absolutely no idea what they are worth when you sell the licenses off?"

Phil spoke, his voice half-muffled by the pillow. "You say you're from Japan and yet the only way you can get us a safe house is to call ahead and tell some old man we're shooting a TV special here?"

Bill rose his finger in the air but didn't get up. "You listen to nothing but Vivaldi and yet you've never insulted another person's taste in music." He let his hand drop to his chest. "Human beings don't act like that."

"Nobody ever sees you eat, you wear the same clothes every day and yet you never can have anything in your pockets, your sweat smells like magnesium and peaches..." Nadine had six fingers extended, counting the items of the list. "Oh! And as we can smell here, you can cannonball entire bottles of Smirnoff without flinching and you do it often enough that you must think it impresses us instead of making people think you're a drunkard. Should we go on?"

"Okay, okay, I get it, keep your voices down!" Nakami hissed. "The illusion was good enough to get me on a plane over here so let's not all go ruining it now!" Hotaru couldn't believe nobody mentioned the obvious, that he was a little grey man with a big oblong head and huge black oval eyes.

Nakami paused and rubbed his temples, then looked at Hotaru. "Okay. I am an alien. And apparently not as good at hiding as a human as I thought. But I'm the good kind of alien, the kind of alien that helps people who are being hurt by the bad kinds of aliens, and who teaches the Raytheon corporation how to make a microwave oven. And I need to talk to you because I think we need your help, okay?"

Hotaru almost asked 'What do you need my help for?' even though she was fully aware of the answer, old habits die hard.

∙ ∙ ∙

Mizuno Ami is the first one to extoll the virtues of school attendance but even she wonders if this is a little much. They'd skipped school on Thursday, because if they didn't the Silence would have come and killed them all. And now as far as they were aware it was still coming, and here she was sitting in science class. There wasn't a whole lot they could do today -- their only lead was in the subway tunnels and that had to wait until late at night when less trains were running so they could explore them. Nobody knew where to find fake FBI agents, and the two previous sites of Death Buster activity were as picked over as a skeleton in the desert. Still, even if they couldn't actively do anything today, maybe they should have been getting some sleep so they could do something tonight. Too late to change their minds now, though.

Ami stifled a yawn, tried to keep it so her classmates couldn't detect it, and failed. She tried not to think about the Pharaoh lest she drive herself mad by going in circles in her head over and over again. She struggled to keep her eyes open, to get them to focus on the blackboard. She tried to concentrate on the lesson, on what the teacher was saying, but soon the words were washing around her like a river around a pebble.

"Saturn is composed primarily of hydrogen gas, though its core is solid material. The rings, made of fine particles of ice and rock, were discovered in the 1600 by astronomer Galileo Galilei but were thought to be solid sheets of material until 1859, when James Clerk Maxwell mathematically proved that solid rings that size would tear themselves apart..." Saturn's rings can tear you apart, too, in fact they can tear the entire Earth apart if they have to, but they only will if the Earth goes bad. Saturn's core is a tiny thirteen-year-old rock now, but its core used to be a nasty little ball of what those in the know call 'ankoku busshitsu' named the Mistress Nine, which is appropriate because the next place it took over was Pluto, the ninth planet in the solar system. Johannes Kepler was the first to observe the girl in the castle on Saturn who's all alone because everyone's afraid of her, which he named with some German word that probably has forty syllables like 'Das Gleckenshurg... eimen... effenfraumenlibzit... wersterschaur... aurutauru... hotaru... hotaru-hotaru-bo-baru-banana-fanna-fo-faru-me-mi-mo-maru'...

"Mizuno-san, might you be able to help the class out?"

Ami's head snapped upward, her eyes went wide, and she half-shouted "Nine point five-eight astronomical units!"

Everyone in the classroom stared at her. Everyone except Minako and Usagi, who were asleep as well and had the good fortune not to be called on yet. A few people giggled.

"Okay, that's..." the teacher paused, looking off to the side as he tried to recall a fact from the depths of his memory, "...the orbital length of... Saturn, I think? But the question was 'who succeeded Leonid Brezhnev for control of the USSR?'"

"Oh." Ami's face turned beet red and she tried to shrink into her chair. This wasn't science class any more, this was World History. She'd been asleep for a half hour, maybe forty-five minutes. Why didn't someone wake her up between classes? "Oh. Uh... Nikita Khrushchev?"

"Close! Khrushchev came before Brezhnev. It was Yuri Andropov, actually, that I was looking for. Mizuno-san, will you step outside with me?"

For the briefest, most fleeting moment, Ami wished the Silence would come and she would not have to face her teacher's admonishment. When it didn't, she walked out into the hallway to face her punishment. "I'm so sorry, Yoshi-sensei," she began as soon as the door closed, hoping that maybe a visible display of contrition would net her a lighter sentence. "That was very disrespectful of me, and I can't tell you how much I regret it..."

The teacher sighed. "Mizuno-san, you know you're my star pupil. You're always the brightest, most dedicated student in there and I can see how much your commitment to your schooling rubs off on your friends."

Ami winced. "Yes, I know, and I know how much it must have disappointed you and I promise that in the future I will work harder to live up to that standard..."

"You can calm down, you know, I'm not going to make you stand out here with the buckets of water or anything like that." He reached for his pocket to get a cigarette then remembered his wife threw them all out. "I wanted to tell you that it's okay for you to miss school once in a while if you're not well enough to learn. Toudai isn't going to reject a student with your credentials because she called in sick one day. Your friend Kino-san called in sick today and the school didn't send the jack-booted thugs to break down her door. I'd rather you be at home getting some rest than here not learning anything anyway. That sound reasonable?"

Ami nodded. "I guess... I guess I have been under a lot of stress lately." Boy, if that wasn't the Understatement Of The Silver Millennium.

"I figured. Look, why don't I just send you down to the clinic for a little while, have the nurse check you out, maybe just lay down for a bit. If after a while you're feeling better, come back to class. If not, call your mother and ask for a ride home."

Ami nodded and started to go back inside to get her things, but the teacher stopped her. "Oh, and one more thing. Don't wake up Tsukino-san and Aino-san while you're in there, because as soon as they wake up on their own I am going to send them out here to carry buckets full of water."

∙

When Ami arrived at the school nurse's station, the lights were dimmed and the room nearly empty. A kindergartener was asleep on one of the cots, but the high-backed swivel chair behind the nurse's desk was empty and there was nobody else to be seen. A yellow Post-It note on the desk read "Back in 3 min! -K" and Ami placed her teacher's note next to it, then fell onto the nearest bed as if it had its own gravity well. Yoshi-sensei was such a great teacher, Ami thought, one that cared so much more for actual learning and knowledge than rote adherence to method. She would have felt guilty about leaving Usagi and Minako twisting in the wind like that, but right now she didn't think her brain had the energy to adequately process guilt.

Sleep was swiftly falling over her like a warm blanket when she heard the nurse's swivel chair turn around. "So... you must be... Mizuno Ami, it says on this note. Hello, Ami-chan." The voice was low, confident, a bit snide. Ami rolled onto her back to see who it was and she hated the fact he was not letting her sleep more than anything else about his actions.

He was, of course, a man in a black overcoat and black pants, wearing a black fedora hat inside and black sunglasses in a darkened room. He was sitting in the nurse's chair, leaning as far back as he could with his feet up on the nurse's desk. In one hand he held the note Ami's teacher had written, in the other he had a lollipop he'd taken from the jar on the nurse's desk. The hands that held these items had two thumbs each. He moved his head slightly to indicate he was looking her over. "You look like Hell, Ami-chan. Late night, I take it?"

Ami wanted to say something defiant, something snappy to come back with, but all she had was "...Yeah."

"You girls up late talking about dolls and boys and glitter and unicorns and all that other bullshit you girls are supposed to be talking about? Or were you up late talking to your new friends at the Hoffmann Institute?"

Ami's head started to list downwards, she snapped it back up. "What do you care? Is the FBI coming to Japan as truant officers?"

The man in black laughed. "Oh, Ami-chan. Ami-chan, Ami-chan, Ami-chan. We here at the 'FBI' don't care whether or not you're going to school. We care when you start hanging around with people like miss Donna... KIMberly... Truitt... that you have no business hanging around with. Those Hoffmann Institute people are bad news and if you don't think we know something about bad news you're going to be sorely, sorely mistaken."

Ami shook her head a bit and wondered if she was dreaming. "What? I don't know who the Hoffmann Institute or what 'Donna KIMberly Truitt' is. Are you menacing the right person?"

He smiled and in the faint light Ami could see his mouth had too many teeth. "You don't, do you? Oh, this is a lot better than we expected. I thought I was going to have to wash a pack of lies out of your head." He steepled his fingers. "Well, I have to anyway, it's just a smaller pack."

From the side of the room the kindergartener's voice came up. "Where's Keiko-san? Where'd Nurse Keiko-san go?"

The man in black let out a noise that was half sigh, half growl. "Somebody locked her keys in her car along with her lunch. What the hell do you want?"

"My tummy hurts! I want Nurse Keiko-San to give me some medicine!" Ami slipped her hand into her pocket and wrapped it around her transformation pen. She wondered how fast she could become Sailor Mercury if the man made a threatening move on her or the kid.

The man in black opened up some drawers in the desk and didn't look inside them. "Oh no, it looks like we're all out of tummy medicine! Why don't you just lay down and be very very quiet and then wish your tummyache away." The kid sniffled as if he was about to cry, and the man in black growled his frustration and hastily followed it up with, "Or, how about I have some lollipops here, would six or seven of those quiet you up?"

The kid momentarily considered that and decided they would. After he'd picked out seven yellow (the best flavor) sugar-free store-brand lollipops, he went happily back over to his bed to wait for his mother to pick him up. "Kids," said the man in black with gesture in the child's direction. "You've got to love them, right? I suppose YOU would, anyway. Oh, and good call on not bringing out the power pen, I could have taken you down well before you were done."

"Who are you and what do you want with me?" Ami wished this was a dream, not so much so that it wouldn't be real as so she could be asleep right now.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm one of those Men in Black you hear so much about." He smiled, wide, insincere. "And after I told you to stay away from the Hoffmann Institute, there's just one other thing I wanted to ask you for now. Do you think the planet Mercury ever had an atmosphere that could support life?"

Behind him, the doorknob turned and the door opened, revealing a woman in a white nurse's uniform holding a set of keys, a bento box, and a twisted-out coat hanger. "Pleasant dreams," whispered the man in black to Ami, and he kicked the desk to spin himself in the chair; after it came around to face Ami again he was gone.

∙ ∙ ∙

The questioning didn't start right away. They'd eaten some breakfast, Phil made excuses about why they had no cameras or microphones. Hotaru took some painkillers for the soreness, and they helped, but not enough. Bill and Donna were sent out to 'do recon' which they all understood to mean 'get out of our hair for a while'. They inspected the grounds to make sure nobody could listen in on them, and then Hotaru began her interview.

She left nothing out this time, as the embarrassing parts they already knew and the unlikely parts were being told to an alien and a person who was punched in the face by Bigfoot. The lab accident that killed her mother and would have killed her. Her father's Faustian deal with the Pharaoh 90 and the malignant being that had lived within her ever since. The Messiah of Silence, the Talismans, Mistress Nine, Sailor Moon, Chibi-Usa, Pure Heart Crystals, the Witches' betrayals and decreasing numbers, the thralls at the Mugen school, the daimon eggs, the Holy Grail, her realization as Sailor Saturn, her power to end the world, her attempt at noble sacrifice, all of it.

When she was done, 'Nakami' the alien looked at her for a few moments with an expression she couldn't read. Eventually he said, "I know you're telling me the truth, because my people have seen these daimons and the heart crystals and you becoming a sailor-suited warrior maiden and all that. But I feel like I'm hearing a sequel to a movie when I never saw the first one."

"What do you mean?"

Phil spoke up from behind him. "Okay, so, you're 'Sailor Saturn'. And that makes you the 'Soldier of Ruin and Birth' and all that, but, why does it? Did someone give you your powers and decide you looked like a 'ruin and birth' kind of person, or is it genetic, or what?"

Hotaru stopped and thought, and felt a bit embarrassed. She'd already known about this stuff, somewhat, without anyone having to tell her and for a moment she'd assumed everyone else would too. She wondered if she was going crazy, the answer was probably yes. "I inherited them... but it isn't genetic, I don't think. There used to be a kingdom called the Silver Millennium, long long ago, and it spanned all across the solar system."

She didn't know why she paused and gave them an opening to say 'that's stupid!' or 'no there wasn't!' but she did anyway. "And the capital of the kingdom was on the Moon, and it was ruled by Queen Serenity." She paused, an image of Serenity's face flashed into her mind unbidden even though she had never seen it. "She was... beautiful and wise. And she loved everyone."

She shook the image off. "And every planet had a princess on it, who was also its guardian. They were the Sailor Senshi, and they were the ones that the Queen trusted enough to give her power. They were all wise and graceful and," and she nearly choked on the last word, "perfect. The Princesses of each planet had a job to do that the Queen trusted them with. I think that Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter were the bodyguards of the Princess of the Moon, Sailor Moon. Neptune and Uranus guarded the kingdom from threats from outside the solar system. Pluto guarded the gates of time. And Princess Saturn didn't guard anything."

Her eyes started to water. "Saturn's job was to kill planets that she thought had become corrupt. All she had to do was drop her scythe and everyone would die. Men, women, children, animals, plants, everything had to die if she thought the planet would breed more evil."

Nadine wanted to say something consoling but couldn't really think of how. "That... that sounds like an awful responsibility for someone to have."

Hotaru's eyes were red and tears ran down her cheeks but she wasn't going to start sobbing, at least until she finished. "And that's who I am now. Usagi's the reincarnation of the perfect and beautiful and loving Princess of the Moon. And I'm Sailor Saturn. I'm the one whose job it is to murder everyone on Earth. Not someone else in my body. That's who I'm reincarnated from. That's what my soul is." Her shoulders shook and her chin quivered; this was depressing to think about in the abstract but to actually assemble it all together and say it out loud it struck her again with full force how horrible and repugnant she really was. "It's who I am."

∙ ∙ ∙

Usagi and Minako stood side-by side in the hallway with wooden poles across their shoulders that each had a bucket of water at both ends. Minako grumbled and shifted her stance around to try and keep her balance, but Usagi had discovered quite a few tardy entrances ago that if she twisted her arms and locked her spine in just the right position, she could sleep standing up and still keep her balance. And Ami said that she didn't take learning seriously!

Usagi's wrist started beeping an approximation of a telephone ring. "Usagi-chan." Minako whispered, trying to get her attention. "Usagi!"

"Yeah, Finna-chan," Usagi half-mumbled, half-slurred. "I know the rhodium thingy's out of the whatsit. It's beeping at me. Me 'n Mamoru are busy kissing, you go fix it?"

"No, Usagi-chan, your watch. Your communicator watch is beeping at you!"

"Well then just tell Chris Hale I'll call him back! Lighthouse in't going anywhere for 'nother... two days, I got his nummer..."

Minako growled in frustration and edged over to Usagi, then very carefully hiked up her arms so she could reach Usagi's watch without tipping her wooden beam too far to the side. She tapped the 'Respond' button on the side; she couldn't see the screen but she heard Chibi-Usa's voice. "Hey! Dumpling-head, where are you! This is important"  
"Usagi-chan can't come to the watch right now," said Minako, carefully turning around so she could look into the screen. "What do you need, Chibi-Usa-chan?"

"Minako, is that you? Listen, I found Luna! Artemis, too!"

Minako edged sideways until at last she was looking into Usagi's watch and could see Chibi-Usa's face. "Artemis? Where have they been this whole time?"

Artemis's white head poked into the frame and covered Chibi-Usa's face, she squealed when the tip of his tail tickled her nose. "We don't know," he said, "We lost a period of like three days there. You were going off to the Mugen school and then the next thing I know it's Sunday and Luna and I are in animal shelter, reeking of garbage!"

Minako looked left and right down the hallway, hoping there was nobody watching; she honestly didn't know what this would look like to an outside observer. "Our powers didn't work for about the same amount of time... maybe you stopped being a magic cat and became a regular cat for a while?"

"That's not important right now!" said Luna's voice, and she jumped on Chibi-Usa'a arm to put her face in front of Artemis's, the image of her was so close-up her nose must have been a millimeter from the camera. "Chibi-Usa-chan told us about the daimon attacks yesterday and we think there may be another wave starting! We can't tell how many for certain, there's some kind of interference, but we know there's a concentration of energy near the Crown game center, and it may not have attacked yet. If you and Sailor Moon get down there quickly, you may be able to track it back to where the daimons are coming from. You go now -- we'll call up Ami-san and Rei-san to meet you over there!"

"Roger that, we are on our way!" Chibi-Usa sneezed, the cats fell out of the image, and the transmission ended. After a moment's deliberation, Minako jumped upward with her bucket next to Usagi's face, when she landed the water splashed upward right into her nose. She sputtered and staggered backwards a few steps, but came to a rest against the wall before she fell all the way. "Time to get up, odango, there's daimons afoot!"

Usagi shook off the last of her dream, then laid the buckets on the ground. "Wow... I was really out of it, wasn't I?"

"You're telling me. Were you and Mamoru sexy physicists again?"

"No, no, sexy spaceship captain this time."

∙ ∙ ∙

Donna felt remarkably good considering the fact she got shot last night. Better than before she got shot, really. Sure, she was sore, she couldn't bend over and she had to bite her lip to keep herself from yelping if someone poked her in the stomach, but that wasn't too bad considering. Hotaru's magic healing hands didn't bring her back to full health but they'd certainly put her well on her way towards it. And the pain left over was more than cancelled out by the fact she'd actually taken a shower and shaved her legs today and wasn't wearing clothes she'd had on since Wednesday. She was wearing some of Bill's clothes, some faded and torn blue jeans and black T-shirt with an angry eagle and the phrase "DON'T TREAD ON ME" silkscreened on the front of it, both of which were too big for her, but at least these clothes were clean.

Phil and Nakami had told them to go "do some recon" and not said where or how they were supposed to do it when neither one of them spoke Japanese. It was obvious they meant "We want you two to go away because we want to talk to Hotaru without you bickering with each other", but as long as they didn't actually say it, Donna could pretend they didn't mean it and keep her dignity intact. Bill and her wandered around on foot for a little while until they found the arcade, which seemed a good a place as any to do fake recon.

"Sonic BOOM! Sonic BOOM! Sonic BOOM! Sonic BOOM!"

Bill tapped the buttons and wiggled the control stick as if his input was doing something. "Yeah, that's right. You just keep doing that gay-ass move over and over again. No, really, go ahead."

"Sonic BOOM! Sonic BOOM! Sonic BOOM!"

"Oh, you want a little cheese with that whine? The game's called 'Street Fighter', not 'Street Let's-All-Be-Pals-And-Go-Easy-On-Each-Other.' You shouldn't bring the ball if you can't... bring... the game!" Donna grinned at how easy it was to rile him up.

"Sonic BOOM! Sonic BOOM!"

"I'd bring the game, if the stupid game would... rrrgh... let me get up... or do SOMETHING!"

"Sonic BOOM! Player 2 wins! PERFECT!"

Bill slapped at the buttons in frustration. "Bah, this game is bullshit. Let's play something that the game will actually let me play."

"Oh, I'd love to, Bill, but shouldn't we start walking back? Nadine had to go and lose our car and now it'll take us forever to get around."

Bill scoffed. "Okay, one, that's bullshit, we're not supposed to back for hours, you just don't want to play something you can't cheese through. And second, she did not 'lose our car'. It was an open top with a push-button ignition and we had to park it on the curb. Somebody stole it from us and there's not a whole lot we could do about that."

Donna shook her head. "Bill, don't you get it? This is Tokyo. People don't just 'steal' cars in Tokyo."

"You just 'steal' cars in Tokyo."

Donna rolled her eyes and privately wondered where the hell she was even going with that line of conversation.

"Anyway, we already bought a bunch of tokens, no use letting them go to waste. You wanna try beating 'Virtua Cop' on one quarter again?"

Since that was a game where Bill couldn't directly beat her, she nodded. "Okay, okay, baby wants his Virtua Cop. Gimme a second though, this place is making my asthma act up." The fact she would make him wait on her and thus establish she was the one who decided how things got done was an added perk.

She stepped outside for a bit of fresh air. It was a nice day, crisp, cloudless. People walked past her in both directions on the sidewalk, none of them in any great rush. If she was the kind of person into picnics, this would be good weather for one.

She started to reach for her pocket and then paused. She'd never see any of these people again and her respiratory problems weren't exactly a CIA-protected state secret, but for some reason she didn't feel like she should pull out an inhaler and start puffing away while total strangers were watching. That was something fat kids did in gym class. With a few surreptitious glances around, and walked her way over to an alley by the arcade and ducked into it. That's be better. Not that she had anything to be ashamed of, of course, but, you know... people watching... better to just avoid it.

She pulled the inhaler out of her pocket and heard something else fall to the floor, almost inaudible. She patted her pocket, realized what it was , and turned to grab it but it had bounced into a pile of trash. She muttered and crouched downward to look for it, wincing. Ordinarily she wouldn't, but it was her magnetic card scrambler, the one from the CIA that opened any electronic lock with a keycard reader. Not only was it an invaluable asset she couldn't replace, but it was the single most badass super-spy leather catsuit blow-cigarette-smoke-on-the-laser-tripwires femme fatale 'steal the McGuffin from the two male leads right under their noses at the end of the movie' piece of equipment she had. She loved that damn thing, more than several members of her family.

∙

Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, and Venus walked two by two down the sidewalk, alternating between 'combat ready stance' and 'walking in a way that passersby don't think we are totally crazy stance'. People were milling about in their cars and on the sidewalks as usual, and if there was a youma in the area they at least would have left and started milling around somewhere else.

"It looks close by," said Sailor Mercury with her hand once again on that invaluable visor, "but the energy signature isn't weak, it's... indistinct. And there's some other stuff I can't quite pinpoint in the area, I don't know if it's caused by the dark matter or not." 

"If it's indistinct, maybe it hasn't found an object to merge with," said Mars. "Maybe there's nothing sharp or pointy or hazardous enough around here."

"That's a possibility, although I don't know why... oh, there it goes, I think it just locked in."

They heard a scream from a nearby alleyway, but not even those of them who are learning English were taught enough to understand the foul expletives used. A woman came flying out of the alleyway as if she'd been thrown, her too-large T-shirt and jeans flapping in the air, her long dark hair splayed out behind her. She hit the sidewalk with a loud, dull THUD and grimaced, clutching her stomach with both arms.

A second later, her assailant emerged. She was the same body type as the woman on the sidewalk, and had the same long black hair, but her skin was pink instead of white, her ears pointed, her mouth fanged, and of course on her left shoulder there was a black five-pointed star. She wore tight black leather pants and a skintight black tank top that showed off her sculpted-but-not-chiseled abs. Wrapped around her shoulder was a length of rope and a grappling hook, and from her right fingertips up to her neck there stretched a thick, featureless black line. On her forehead was a pair of what appeared to be night-vision goggles. She was looking at the woman on the floor, shaking her head, circling around her. It was clearly a daimon, but one of the older models, made out of a target's treasured possession instead of something that was dangerous, only five or so feet tall and walking like it wasn't running a bad program. Already people started fleeing from the sight of her.

Venus and Moon both raised their hands and pointed at the daimon, but Usagi opened her mouth just a half-second faster. "Halt, evildoer! I am the beautiful warrior of love and justice, Sailor Moon! And in the name of the Moon, I will punish you!"

The daimon's head snapped to face them and she snarled, her expression angry and also afraid. "What, so you think you can just JUDGE me now?" she said with the hint of an English-speaker's accent, "All of a sudden you're freaking BETTER than me? Who the Hell are you? You're nobody, that's who!"

∙ ∙ ∙

Nadine knew it was inappropriate and they didn't know each other that well but God damn after Hotaru had said her inescapable purpose was mass murder Nadine thought she needed a hug. She kneeled down to where Hotaru was sitting, hesitated a moment, then wrapped her arms around the young girl's shoulders. Hotaru didn't push her away but she didn't return the embrace either, just waited for her to let go. After a few moments of clutching her and gently patting her on the back, she did.

"I'm not going to tell you you're wrong," said 'Nakami' the thin grey alien, "Because by this point I know there's more strange stuff out in the world than I'll ever be able to fully grasp. I don't know anything about a Silver Millennium, but I can tell you what I do know.

"My people call themselves the 'Fraal'." That visibly caught Hotaru's interest, but she didn't speak. "And a few thousand years ago, my ancestors left their home planet to colonize another one. But something went wrong, their wormhole drive malfunctioned and they wound up in your... well, our solar system. And to fix it they needed a very rare element that did not exist here." A pause. "I don't think they recorded anything about the planets other than Earth being occupied. Maybe they came afterward. As they approached the only habitable planet, they found something waiting for them in space. A demon that they named Isci ba Fan, which means 'The Silent One' in our language. He had almost no physical form, and from what little information they could gather from him he was apparently in that state because he had tried hundreds of years before to teleport himself across the galaxy, but when he arrived he found that only a small part of his intelligence made it to his destination, and the rest of his mind and body were trapped in an empty plane of existence parallel to this one. And he was still a threat to us because he is the most powerful psionic entity the Fraal have ever encountered. My species are telepaths, you see, and we know a lot about the powers of the mind. That's how I can walk down the street without people seeing what I am, I put up a telepathic illusion."

"It's an illusion?" asked Phil. "We all thought you were some kind of shapeshifter."

"And everyone else at the Institute can go on thinking that, okay?" He turned back to Hotaru. "Skilled Fraal mindwalkers can lift things with their minds, they can read thoughts, they can assault a person's psyche directly and they can turn away the attacks of other mindwalkers. And when they met Isci ba Fan, his psionic power was so great it made theirs seem like tennis balls and tissue paper. He could possess people, control their minds directly and make them carry out his will. The only way to tell was if someone tried to read his thoughts, they would be utterly silent. That's how he got his name."

At least how THEY arrived at his name, Hotaru thought.

"He immediately attacked the crew of the Fraal motherships and set about using them to see if he could find a way to get all the way back in our reality. The Fraal couldn't stop him. He had no physical form to damage or restrain. He swatted aside the mental attacks of every single Fraal telepath on the ship with ease. Destroy his host, and he moved to another one. He could only directly posess one at a time, but some people think he may have been able to shear off tiny pieces of himself to act as independent, though far less powerful, entities. It still took many of us to destroy each one of these shards, but he didn't seem to make too many. Eventually they thought he was so dangerous and so resilient that the only way to kill him was to overload the dark fusion reactor on the ship he was occupying. It exploded with hundreds of gigatons of force, it killed everyone on board..."

"But you couldn't kill him. He survived."

"But he survived. And when the remaining Fraal mothership landed on the moon, he followed them. He didn't attack as openly because he had decided the Fraal didn't have the means to free him, and he enjoyed lurking in the shadows, preying on them, sampling their fear. And when the Fraal sent their scout ships out to Earth to explore the life there, Isci ba Fan followed them. Every single Fraal knows the story of Isci ba Fan, and almost all of them tell themselves it's a myth to frighten children into obeying their authority figures, but we all know better. He is real, and he is powerful, and there is nothing we can do to stop him. We're like ants to him.

"He's..." said Hotaru but she couldn't find a word in English or Japanese to encompass the extent of his power, his malice, and his loathing.

"Our only solace is how little he likes to actually posess the minds of living things -- we are so far beneath him he thinks it defiles him. That's why we think he uses others, has them work to bring him into the world. He appears to be immortal and would rather spend centuries waiting than touch our minds any more than he has to."

Phil spoke up. "It would make sense, then. Dr. Tomoe was working to summon Isci ba Fan, and maybe the Fader we found came in by mistake, or coincidence. He was trying to bring something great and terrible into the world, he needed a lot of power to do it. He said there was a great mass of evil material underneath the city, which is why he chose to work here..."

Nakami turned back to him. "Evil material? Does that mean there's a dark matter gateway under the city"  
"What? Oh, no no no," said Phil as he shook his head, then switched to English to explain. "I mean, the phrase 'ankoku busshistu' can literally mean 'dark matter', but it's really more like 'material of darkness' or 'evil material'. If it was the scientific term, it would be in katakana and pronounced 'daaku materu'. If there was an actual dark matter gateway underneath Tokyo, I think we'd see a lot more evidence of supernatural phenomena than even this."

Hotaru had only heard the phrase 'ankoku busshistu' when her father and Kaolinite were talking about it, so she had no reason to correct him.

Nakami shook his head. "I suppose if I say I'm Japanese I should learn more about the language than I do." He sighed, though Hotaru couldn't see where his nostrils were.

"Anyway. From his notes it looked like he needed, in addition to a power source, an anchor point. A living locus that would serve as a beacon and that the 'Pharaoh', as he called it, could pull itself towards because it had an existing sympathy . A piece of itself that had grown and matured in this world." Phil looked down and off to the side. "We... think that was you."

"But what is most important here is that you fought it off. A piece of Isci ba Fan was possessing you, a powerful and mature one, and you threw off its control yourself. The most powerful Fraal mindwalkers couldn't free themselves without three or four others helping. The only explanation I can give is... it must have been possessing you so long, from such a young age, but not trying to actively take control until the end... that as you grew up your mind was able to adapt to it and build up an immunity. You can see right through the illusion I'm putting out; Phil can't do that and he's been trained in how to see through illusions. If I tried to read your mind right now I imagine I'd find it silent too, and not because you're being possessed, but because you've built up an immunity to it."

She looked away from him. "Or it's because that's one of Sailor Saturn's powers, not something I have."

"Maybe." He nodded. "I don't know what a Sailor Saturn can and can't do. What I do know is that you're one of, probably the most psi-resistant person on Earth. And that means you can go places and do things others can't. I started the Hoffmann Institute to help understand and protect people from things like aliens, psychics, demons, wizards, and stranger things besides. When me or one of my agents finds someone that can fight the supernatural, we ask them if they want to join us. And we don't have a lot of money and our equipment is either secondhand or stolen and we don't always win but if nobody else is willing to do this, we're going to because someone needs to do it.

"There are things that prey on people that you can stop. Tomoe-san... People, more than you think, can read minds or lift objects telekinetically or alter people's memories or control their behavior, and not all of them are responsible with it. They hurt people, and I think you'd be able to save people from them. There's a demon older than the Pyramids here on Earth and you can resist his attacks. That's all I knew about you when I decided I had to come out here and meet you in person. I don't know anything about a Sailor Saturn or Sailor Moon or Holy Grails or Silver Millennia or anything like that and as far as I am concerned anything more you can do is just an added bonus that doesn't factor into my decision.

"I want you to come back to America with us and join my organization. I want to make you an agent of the Hoffmann Institute, like Philip and Nadine are. You could even be on the same team as them, if you'd like. And I know that you just met me and I know you're young but still I think that you can do a lot of good for a lot of people. Maybe you don't know it yet, or you don't believe it, but I do: You are exactly who the Hoffmann Institute needs."

Hotaru chewed on her lip. It was a patently stupid proposal, she only wondered how she should turn it down. She was 13 years old, for God's sake. And she didn't want to see 14 no matter how often she was told the capacity to kill everyone on Earth didn't make her evil. And she didn't know, wasn't friends with these people, she'd only been following along as the path of least resistance. And the alien, who she didn't know, thought she could do great things and he would only be disappointed when he put his trust into her and inevitably she failed it. And her only friend in the world lived here in Tokyo and couldn't follow her. And his Hoffmann Institute weren't the only people willing to defend the innocent from strange horrors because that's what the Sailor Senshi did, and they were far more noble, far more pure, far more loving, and far better at it. If she was to be a part of any team, it would be Sailor Moon's.

Wouldn't she?

∙ ∙ ∙

The pink-skinned daimon rolled her head from side to side, cracking her neck. She had her legs spread, one in front of the other, and hopped lightly from foot to foot like a boxer preparing for the bell. "So how about if you think you're such hot shit you put your magic where your mouth is, huh? Any of you still wanna prove you're better than U-Kigumoko?"

Only Mercury got that reference, and she didn't get it until later.

Mercury and Venus broke formation and spread out to the street and opposite sidewalk; the people around them were running off and screaming until they got about three blocks away and then acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary, cars were diverting out of their paths before they passed in front of the Crown arcade. Mercury might be able to see how far they went, if everyone was out of danger, but her visor was now showing nothing but static. She knew there were at least two people still here -- the dark-haired woman was trying to bring her ankle to her hand without leaning forward or sitting up, but making no effort to run, and for a moment she saw a red-haired man with an unkempt beard and a dark green Army surplus jacked duck his head out of the Crown, curse, and duck back in. He matched the description they had of one of the 'FBI' agents who had Hotaru, this could be no coincidence.

Mars swung her hand in a wide circle, her fingertip tracing out a ring of fire. When U-Kigumoko saw this she grinned and hopped upward, though less than a foot. "Burning MANDALA!" shouted Mars, and pointed her outstretched finger at the daimon; the ring of fire broke into several burning projectiles that streaked toward their target leaving zig-zagging afterimages in Mercury's eyes. The daimon, before she landed, rotated her body and kicked the wall with both feet, sending her flying into the street and out of the path of the flaming projectiles. They continued down the sidewalk, streaking right over the dark-haired woman's face, but collided with a wall before they could hit another target. U-kigumoko hit the asphalt with her shoulder and rolled, coming to a stop with her feet and fingertips touching the ground.

"Holy crap," she said in a voice equal measures disbelief and desperation, "You've got multiple-shot fire balls and you STILL managed to miss me? You're horrible at this, absolutely horrible!"

Sailor Moon went for the Moon Rod, and U-Kigumoko's eyes went for Sailor Moon's hand, and she took off in a sprint to stop Moon's attack. Venus's Crescent Beam crackled right behind the daimon, an attack apparently slower than light that needed to be led against a moving target. Mercury aimed ahead of the daimon to fire the Shine Aqua Illusion, but the moment she was halfway through the word "Illusion" -- and Sailor Moon was on the word "Spiral" -- it dropped to the asphalt feet outward and went into a full-on baseball slide. Mercury's attack went clear over it's head and before Sailor Moon could get her attack off the daimon was kicking the legs out from under her and then batting her away as she fell. The daimon rolled back to her feet in that same fingers-on-the-street pose as before, Sailor Moon hit the asphalt with a yelp and her arms flailing.

"So who wants to say they're going to punish me now, huh?" said the daimon, her eyes wide. "Since none of you can FIGHT, does anyone still want to tell me how they're BETTER than me? Maybe next you can tell me how your fashion sense is bet--"

"Sic semper TYRANNIS!" came a voice from behind them, there was a gunshot, and the daimon's head snapped back as if someone had yanked an invisible string on her scalp. It was the fake FBI agent, the red-headed man, holding a silver-plated revolver and leaning around the doorway of the Crown arcade for cover.

The daimon pulled her head back down, face twisted by hate. The left lens of the 'night vision goggles' she wore on her forehead was deformed and bruised a yellow color. "What the hell do you think, you think you're proving something by ambushing me? You think that means you can beat me? You think you gang up on me eight or nine to one and then you get to, what, dance around about how great you are for being better than U-Kigumoko?"

"I am starting to miss being called a 'Sailor Brat,'" Venus muttered.

The man with the revolver fired three more times in quick succession but the best he did was to graze the daimon's thigh. The dark-haired woman laying on the sidewalk had pulled her leg up to reach her arms and had pulled up her pants leg to reveal an ankle holster, from which she pulled out a pistol of her own, a bulky silver semi-automatic.

Mars took a step back and started to move her hands to invoke another attack, but she couldn't even get a syllable of the invocation out before U-Kigumoko jumped at her, arm outstretched, and slammed her palm into Mars's face. The daimon tried to push Mars downward and pie-face her into the asphalt but Mars regained her senses too quickly, grabbing the daimon's arm and yanking it towards her to fling her out of the daimon's grip. She hit the street facedown, Mars stumbled and broke a heel when her feet hit the ground but after a few steps she managed to hold her footing. The daimon was starting to roll to her feet before she even finished falling, getting ready to kick herself back off the street, shouting "You must think you're some pretty hot shit, huh? You keep laughing, because I'm going to stuff you in a mailbox!"

"Donna! Kneecap it!" shouted the red-haired man in English, "Don't let it get back up!" The four Senshi were going to blast the daimon to pieces as it got up anyway, but when they heard someone start talking they all hesitated for a split-second before they determined if what was being said should change their course of action. Gunshots rang out on the empty street in stereo and the daimon flinched, but didn't lose its balance; and when the first of the Senshi's attacks went off, she was already in a crouched position that let her roll forward to dodge the Crescent Beam by a nanometer, kick herself to the left to evade a Shine Aqua Illusion that froze off about six inches of her hair, break into a zig-zagging run to avoid a storm of Burning Mandala fireballs that singed the hairs off her arm, then run at the brick wall with a Moon Spiral Heart Attack trailing right behind her, do no less than a damn Wuxia wall-jump to backflip over most of the storm of magic energy, and then stick the landing as she came down. She was screaming in pain and her left arm and leg were smoking in several places where the attack collided with her, but she did stick the landing, and even though she was a crazy and evil (and unstable) daimon that still was worth a fair amount of points.

She made a motion like she was actually biting the scream in half as it came out of her throat and swallowed. "Are you... you always this pathetic or are you putting... on a show for me? You've got... got all that firepower and still none of you can connect with anything!" The daimon crouched and looked to be making a run for Mercury, but she grabbed a broken chunk of brick blasted free by Sailor Moon's attack and after two steps she rolled to the side and flung the brick at Moon's head, it caught her in the shoulder and she accidentally let go of the Moon Rod. She looked downward to grab it with her other hand before it touched the ground, and that's why she didn't see the daimon's foot before it connected with her right temple. Moon staggered to the left, clutching where she'd been kicked, U-Kigumoko followed up with a few punches to the stomach and then a snap kick to the chest.

She seemed surprised and displeased when the attack just caused Moon to fall backwards a few steps instead of, presumably, flying back a few blocks and tearing out a furrow in the street. Not wanting to stand there and get shot, the daimon stepped forward to grab Moon's wrist and twist it behind her back in a hammerlock. She probably would have started mocking them again too, now that she had a human shield in front of her, but as she opened her mouth she was cut off by the distinctive noise of a long-stemmed rose becoming embedded in concrete. Everyone present traced the flower's path back to its point of origin and saw Tuxedo Kamen standing atop a building, cape billowing in the wind, looking incredibly heroic and majestic.

Tuxedo Kamen wasn't really sure what this creature was made out of or what specific type of activity it was corrupting, so he decided to go with one of his 'generic' speeches that could apply to any of the daimons. "One who would damage the pure heart of a young girl, you cannot be forgiven!"

"What the hell makes you think you're in any position to be offering me forgiveness?" Venus sighed and covered her face with her palm, and Moon visibly rolled her eyes.

"Hey, uh, I can't understand what the guy in the hat is saying," said the dark-haired woman, in English, while still lying on her back on the sidewalk. "Is he with you or it?" She tried to train her weapon on him, but it was a real funny angle to aim at if she couldn't move her torso.

"That's Tuxedo Kamen, he's with us," replied Venus, her accent British by way of Japan. "Are you two with the FBI?"

"Not any more," said a voice from right behind Venus's ear. She yelped, stepped forward, spun around and saw the red-headed man loading the last bullet into his revolver as if nothing was unusual. "We're going to say NSA from now on, because apparently FBI is taken." He nodded his head toward Moon and the others. "So you're all Sailor Something-or-others, I take it?"

"Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars." Venus sounded like she was going to add something, but stopped, and they watched the daimon for several more seconds. She was still talking, really unloading on Tuxedo Kamen, and still using Moon as a human shield. Moon was looking less like someone in fear of her own life and more like someone who is getting bored and her arm is getting tired.

"Bill," said 'Donna,' "Why did you shout 'Sic Semper Tyrannis' when you shot that thing? Did you think it's some kind of pink chick Abe Lincoln?"

"It's Latin," said 'Bill,' as he spun the cylinder and snapped it back into place. "it means 'Thus Always To Tyrants.' I think it's a good slogan to have. And, you know, everyone's yelling out some phrase before their attacks, and... I thought it looked fun, I wanted to try it out."

"Actually," corrected Venus, "The phrase is 'Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus.'"

∙ ∙ ∙

Hotaru swirled the tip of her transformation pen around in the koi pond, watching the ripples distort her reflection. Beneath the surface she saw four of the koi, congregated around her hand, staring at it. Their fishy eyes were wide and unblinking, their mouths hanging open and closing as if the water was something to be chewed, and Hotaru thought for a moment that the fish were gazing in terror. Their eyes were wide, locked on the pen she was swirling in the water, and their mouths were agape in shock. 'What is this horrible thing reaching down from the heavens,' they were saying in fish-language, 'and what horrible doom shall it bring to our pond?'

She pulled the pen out of the water and wiped it off on the leg of her pants. The fish watched the space it had been in for a couple seconds, then resumed attending to fish business. In seconds they'd forgotten about the threat she posed to them, but at least for a while they were afraid. So that established they were smarter than most people around here.

She'd tried telling them why they wanted nothing to do with her and they didn't care. They obviously didn't believe her, as if a magic kingdom on the moon reincarnating its princesses as magical warriors in modern-day Tokyo was totally plausible but one of them having the power to destroy the world was just impossible. They never came out and said it, but it was obvious. They told her they didn't care about that, and they meant for her to take it as "We accept you for who you are, now please say yes so we can leave," but in truth it was just more "This thing would make me uncomfortable, so I pretend it doesn't exist."

They didn't understand. How could they? Creatures like her were so horrible as to be totally outside the realm of anyone's experience, even people who work for aliens and get punched by Bigfoot. And the alien didn't know anything about the Silver Millennium, even though his mothership had been parked on the Moon. He'd been closer than Hotaru could ever be and he'd no idea what kind of heart-rending beauty had been upon that spot. It was gone and dead, everything, and now she was in a world that had no place for her twice over.

They told her to go out and get some air, see what Hino-san was making for lunch, get some time to think. She heard them arguing with each other in the distance. Of course they didn't actually leave her, Hotaru could still see Nadine out of the corner of her eye, peeking her head around a corner. Every time Hotaru turned around, Nadine ducked back out of sight. She knew why she was being watched, of course. They thought that if she was left alone for two minutes she'd transform into Sailor Saturn and slice her own head off with the Silence Glaive. And the thought was tempting -- Hotaru doubted anyone could stop her if she tried -- but she knew she couldn't. If she killed herself out of the blue, then her only friend in the world would be devastated, consumed with thoughts of what more she could have done to save her, unable to see the catastrophe she would avert with her suicide. If she got another opportunity to sacrifice herself, Chibi-Usa would still be sad, but she'd see it as something noble, the ultimate proof of the good in Hotaru's heart, and then she'd be able to feel happy when she thought of her friend.

Chibi-Usa was young, loving, naive to think that any good lived in her, and Hotaru couldn't bear to crush her spirit by taking that away. No, better to die later, ribbons of pure elemental death slicing through her body as they destroyed the Pharaoh who would end the world. Or be impaled and flayed alive by the Pharaoh in order to give the others enough time to seal and destroy him. Or leap in front of a bullet meant for someone else, someone with a heart and a future, someone who deserved to live. She'd caused enough suffering, and the point of her death would be to prevent more of it, not cause it. And the Pharaoh was her responsibility, a beast summoned by and for her own malevolence, unable to come to the world without her body to serve as its beacon. And it had said it was ancient when the Fraal fostered the lunar kingdom from which she drew her power. And the Fraal were the big-headed grey aliens. And the big-headed grey alien said that Saturn had never been inhabited by any kind of life.

The Pharaoh was probably lying, though.

The hair on the back of Hotaru's neck stood up about half a second before she saw a man's face reflected in the water, standing behind her. He was a middle-aged man, the hair on his temples greying, the skin of his cheeks craggy and pockmarked. He was wearing a blue policeman's cap, and when he put his hand on Hotaru's shoulder she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from screaming.

"Tomoe Hotaru-san?" he asked, his voice low and regretful. Hotaru nodded without turning around. "Miss, could you please come with me? Don't make a scene like your friends are."

Hotaru turned and with horror realized that Nadine was no longer watching her, and the noises she heard had gone from 'having an argument' to 'resisting arrest'. Nakami, Philip, and Nadine were all being pushed toward the entrance of the shrine, wrists bound behind them -- Nakami's were bound with a plastic zip-tie, his wrists were probably too small for handcuffs. They were demanding to be taken to the American embassy, demanding to know what the charges were, even as behind them a pair of crime-scene technicians were carrying an M16, a Mosin-Nagant, and two Ziploc bags full of ammo. Four cop cars were parked at the entrance. When did they arrive? How long were they here, while Hotaru was too lost in thought to hear them? She was so stupid to have let this happen...

"Yeah, Hotaru-chan. Wouldn't want to go making a scene like your friends at the Institute, would we?" The voice came from behind her, and when she turned around she saw exactly what she thought she would see: a man in all-black with sunglasses and too many thumbs... only it wasn't the one from before. His voice was off slightly, his nose broader, his lips slightly more pale. He was holding an orange and once Hotaru had turned to face him, he took a loud bite of it without bothering to take off the peel.

"Agent Statler!" said the policeman with a yelp. "I'm, I'm sorry sir, you startled me."

"Her too, by the looks of it," he said around half-chewed chunks of orange. "Or perhaps she's upset by the fact she couldn't hide from us forever." He swallowed noiselessly. "I hear she can be very coy with her emotions like that."

"Sir?" asked the middle-aged cop, but he didn't let go of her shoulder, not yet.

"Just keep her away from... sharp objects and you should be fine, Tadaka-san." He took another bite from the orange, on the opposite side of the first. "Now if the two of you would excuse me, I have another arrest to make uptown." He glanced at the ground by where Hotaru was sitting. "Oh, and don't forget your pen, Hotaru-chan. You're soon going to have a great deal of time to catch up on your correspondence." He chuckled and walked away, after a few steps casually flinging the rest of his orange at Nakami's head as he got into the car. Hotaru's and the cop's eyes both followed the orange as it flew toward its target, and when their eyes flicked back to 'Agent Statler' he was gone. Hotaru heard a car start.

Hotaru slowly, carefully reached for her transformation pen, waiting for the cop to tell her to stop. He didn't. Why would 'Statler' have her arrested and then tell her to take her magic pen? He could just be mocking her, or...

Or he doesn't know what the pen does. Because he can't read her thoughts like he could the others. Because she's Sailor Saturn, or because her brain's been sparring with the Mistress Nine for years for practice, but for some reason he didn't know exactly what she could do. And if he was giving the police orders, they didn't know what she could do.

The policeman apologized as he locked a handcuff onto her left wrist, and it slid easily off of her before he could place the other side. "Hold on," he said, "I have some of those plastic zip-things in my pocket..." and Hotaru had already come up with a plan. Later on she'd be able to come up with the reasoning behind the plan, that Nadine could not recognize Sailor Saturn as Hotaru without being told, that Usagi and Sailor Moon looked identical but nobody ever seemed to notice. She would come up with that well after she actually did it. At that point all she knew was that the cop expected her to be cooperative, and he'd let go of her shoulder to look for the zip-ties in his pocket, and she was running like a bat out of Hell with her hand closed in a white-knuckle grip around the pen.

She hated running track in school because, among other things, she was always embarrassed to be the last one still on the track, slowly plodding around the oval and stopping to catch her breath when everyone else had finished their run three minutes ago. Ironically, this was the time her classmates tolerated her the most, as when the class was waiting on her to finish all of the other students got to goof off in the bleachers. She was young, light, and not strong but certainly lithe, her problem had always been one of endurance. She couldn't run the entire fifty-meter dash without stopping to breathe, and that was the shortest one they had. Hotaru always thought that maybe, if they had a twenty-five meter dash, she might just be able to reach the goal in the same time as everyone else and then collapse at the finish line.

She's not too good at eyeballing distances, but she figured that tool shed she spotted, nestled in the trees out behind the shrine, was about thirty meters from her starting point. There's no way she'd get there with enough of a lead, no way she could get there at all. She didn't dare look behind her, because she knew if she did she would see the policeman running at her, less than a meter away. Or training his gun on her head. Her breath was already labored, her footfalls heavy, each step felt like it added another iron weight to her chest, and it hurt to inhale, much less to speak. But speak she did, one word for each breath. "Saturn... Planet... Po... Power... Make..." She said 'Make' about five steps too early, and she wondered how far apart the magic words could be. Without daring to look behind her she reached the open door of the tool shed and the inviting darkness inside. She took one step inside and tripped over a non-functioning leafblower left on the ground, as she fell the last word of the incantation escaped her lips as a hoarse whisper, "...up..."

Grumbling to himself about the horrible state of today's youth, Officer Tadaka jogged down the path he'd seen the fleeing girl take. Why couldn't she have just cooperated? The police had all the exits covered, she had to know that, resisting arrest just makes it worse on her. He ducked his head into the tool shed as he passed it and saw a girl, perhaps 14 or 15, with violet hair and eyes and wearing an ornate school uniform. It had to be the grand-daughter of the shrinekeeper, Agent Statler had mentioned something about how he had a granddaughter with dark purple hair who went to a private school with its own hours and thus may or may not be at the shrine even on a school day. Rei, that's what her name was.

'Rei' was lying on the ground, visibly dazed, in a heap of mulch and potting soil that spilled out from several ruptured bags stacked by the wall of the shed. Several on the bottom had been torn when someone ran into them, but two on the top appeared to have been neatly sliced open. 'Rei' was covering her mouth and holding her breath, trying not to inhale the dust swirling around.

"Did a girl in a black outfit do this to you?" 'Rei' nodded and pointed off to her left, and the officer gave her a little salute. "Much obliged, Rei-san."

"Don't mention it," Hotaru rasped. She held her breath until the policeman had enough time to get a few meters away, then lapsed into a coughing fit.

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

ARTIFACTS OF THE SAILOR SENSHI:

SILENCE GLAIVE: The Silence Glaive is the weapon given to Sailor Saturn to symbolize and empower her duties to cleanse worlds. It is a polearm roughly five feet in length, with the head comprising about a foot of it. The blade has one large, crescent-shaped head, and one short, straight head, roughly forming the shape of a "G" together. The weapon is nearly weightless, its head nearly as sharp as a monofilament blade, and even if it is broken it returns to normal when Sailor Saturn next transforms. Likely due to the fear it would be stolen and abused, it vanishes when no part of Saturn's body or clothing is touching it.

The weapon does d8w/3d4+1w/d4+3m Low Impact damage, using the Melee Weapons -- Blade skill, with a base accuracy of -2.

Finesse Weapon: The Glaive is so light that anyone can comfortably wield it, and its tip so sharp that the wielder need not place any substantial force behind a swing in order to deal damage. The wielder may choose to use his or her DEX as the base stat to add the Melee Weapons -- Blade skill to, rather than STR, and compute attacks based on that. The wielder suffers no penalties to melee damage for a low STR, nor receives any bonus for a high STR.

Star Cleaver: The Silence Glaive is so sharp, in fact, that it can cleave through dense, hardened material as easily as it can flesh. Though the weapon is not truly monomolecular and it can be slowed or stopped when chopping through an item, it is still mostly limited by the wielder's ability to swing it and the target's ability to dodge it. The damage from the Silence Glaive has no intensity and never upgrades or downgrades regardless of the toughness of the target. Sailor Saturn could, theoretically, destroy a Super-Heavy toughness warship by hacking at it with the Glaive, provided she had an environmental suit, some amphetamines to stay awake, around 3 or 4 days to kill, and none of the warship's weapons could aim low enough to hit her, and nobody else in an enviro-suit came out of the hole she was cutting to throw her off the hull, and nobody waited until she jumped in to saw through the interior decks and shot her with a mass rifle.

Infamous Artifact: The Glaive is said to have the power to scourge all life from the planet, at a cost of destroying its owner as well. Whether or not it does is unclear (and up to the Gamemaster's decision), it's irrelevant to its reputation -- it is a very distinctive weapon and it portends very bad things. Those well-versed in arcane lore, and there are more of those than you would think, would recognize the weapon and take the kind of measures to to destroy its owner that you might take if you saw someone who could end the world.

THE STONEBURNERS' LEGACY: A mysterious artifact inherited by Sailor Yellow Sky, this device is believed to be proof that the mysterious chlorine-breathing race referred to as the "Stoneburners" by Yellow Sky's current colonists practiced Planetary Sorcery before, or perhaps in parallel to, the development of the nightmarish bio-engineering and dimensional-warping technologies that their ruins are now known for. The device is a sphere of a semi-porous greenish-black material about 10 cm in diameter that orbits around Sailor Yellow Sky's left arm with no visible means of propulsion or support. Unlike the other artifacts here, The Stoneburners' Legacy is a Flaw, rather than a Perk; Sailor Yellow Sky does not know how to turn it off or make it go away and it is active whether or not she is in Senshi form, though only visible when she is transformed.

Regenerator: The device is capable of regenerating wounds Sailor Yellow Sky has suffered in Senshi or normal form. Each round the regeneration is active, the user heals 1 stun, wound, and mortal durability. The regeneration activates the instant the user receives any damage, whether or not she wants it to, whether or not she's taken any wounds or mortal that need to be regenerated. The device has a total of 9 rounds of regeneration to be used per day.

Kinetic Dispersal: The device uses something akin to an ablative force field to defend its bearer against impact. Unlike most personal force fields, this field can protect from low-velocity damaging impacts as well as high-velocity ones. It doesn't prevent others from touching her, but it will prevent someone from slapping her, or poke her with a pencil -- anything that causes "damage", even if it would be 0 points, activates the shield. The shield stops up to 4 points of damage from any Low Impact or High Impact attack, to a total of 20 points per day.

Leech: The Stoneburners' Legacy device is powered by biological energy, not an internal power source. Of course, it can't take power from its wearer, that might impede the Senshi's function. Instead, it draws power from the people around it. Each time one of the device's powers is used -- each time the kinetic dispersal is activated, even for 0 damage, and each round regeneration is active -- someone in the area takes 3 Wound damage. The energy is taken from friendly targets over hostiles, close targets over far, and undamaged targets over wounded ones. It cannot drain energy from someone more than 10 meters away, or from someone who would be reduced to half or fewer Wounds by the drain. The user has no control over who this drains and it never, ever goes for who she'd want. If there are no drainable targets within 10 meters, the device fails to function.

When the device activates while the user is in Senshi form, a bolt of purplish-black electricity arcs from the sphere to the person drained. When activated in civilian form, the drained target has no visual indication but still feels like he's been stabbed in the gut.

Decreased Ability: Of course, to power the hovering and orbiting, the device needs to drain power from something. It reduces its user's STR score by 1, because Senshi usually don't need to use physical strength. And if they do, well, that's too bad.

GARNET ORB: The head of the Garnet Staff, weapon and Talisman of Sailor Pluto, Guardian of the Gates of Time. The Garnet Orb is an artifact that appears as a sphere of semi-opaque garnet roughly 15 centimeters in diameter. It is generally placed in a bowl-like setting atop a staff resembling a six-foot key , with a heart-shaped head holding the orb in place. It controls and channels the power of the Gates of Time, but the powers of the Gates usable only by the Garnet Orb are counted as being powers of the Orb. The staff into which it is set is often used as a focus for other magical attacks but has no particular application as a weapon on its own.

Time Travel: The main application of the Staff is its use as a key to unlock the Gates of Time. There is no limit on the length of time one may travel forwards and backwards, and it is not especially stressful or taxing -- Small Lady Serenity treats time travel as something mundane as a stroll in the park. However, there are some restrictions on travel that must be noted. First, travel between two points can only occur if the Dark Tide at the current time and intended destination are both high enough to support time travel -- there is no hard and fast measure for this, but it should be fairly high. And since the Gate is not a stable time gateway and must re-find destination points, there is a "recharge time" associated with its use. No individual or group can enter or leave through the Gate within 121 hours of any group entering or leaving the Gate. A group that leaves cannot immediately return and must wait 121 hours, and a group cannot return to any time within 121 hours, before or after, the time it left. A group can leave a time they are visiting early if the time gate was locked open for them, but as this requires large amounts of energy and theoretically allows

Temporal Freeze: Referred to as a Guardian of Time's "most forbidden ability", the Garnet Orb is capable of actually freezing the flow of time. This requires no roll, and the user as well as any targets within sensory range he or she designates are able to move and speak freely while time is frozen, and all other things are stopped between seconds and can perceive nothing of the characters moving and acting. Attacks can be made on frozen targets, but as they are slowed down and frozen before hitting the target they are no more effective than usual. The amount of strain this puts on the user's body is immense and the tidal forces of being stretched out between multiple points in time work to shred them apart. For every round this power is in use, the user receives 1 Mortal damage. As an average adult human has 5 Mortal durability and a round is 12 seconds, the limit on this is generally to keep it under 60 seconds. Once the time-freeze ends, either by the artifact's user willingly ending it or being torn to bloody shreds by paraspatial pressures, time resumes flowing as normal, and anything that moved around or was in some way changed during the freeze appears to onlookers as if it was changed in the blink of an eye.

Teleportation & Clairvoyance: Sailor Pluto is allegedly to never leave the Gates of Time, however she and Queen Serenity knew it would happen anyway. Regardless of the fact that Pluto left the Gate to help Small Lady, and to find Sailor Saturn and destroy Pharaoh 90, there's no bathroom and nothing to eat at the Gate. The next best thing is rapid recall to the Gates, which the Orb can provide. If the user is away from the Gates, she can be teleported back to them regardless of distance, but cannot bring any more than she has on her person. While away, the Orb also allows the user to mentally monitor the Gate as with ESP -- Clairvoyance, though there's no sound and the angle of the image cannot be changed.

Compulsory Behavior: Even though the Guardian of Time can leave the Gate if necessary, and in fact could probably leave it quite often and still have it totally guarded, she does not. Because it's her by god DUTY to remain at the Gate, watching, making sure no interlopers enter. The owner of the Orb is compelled to remain at the Gates at all times and may only leave them by passing a WIL feat check at a +1 penalty. Checks may also be called for for extended amounts of time away from the Gate, and cannot be rerolled if failed.

SPACE SWORD: Though the Space Sword is one of the three Talismans, a magic item passed down to Sailor Uranus from the days of the Silver Millennium, it is quite explainable in scientific terms. It is the magical approximation of a Progress Level 8 star sword -- quite advanced even for the Silver Millennium, and it is unknown where they acquired the design. The Space Sword generates a complicated phased magnetic field, using magic instead of superconductors, and fills the magnetic area with white-hot plasma, a thin filament from the heart of a star. When the magnetic field is breached, as when touched, the heat and energy within cause great damage to anything it contacts. Though the plasma never actually touches the target, as it vanishes back to whence it was conjured from while the field is breached, the residue it leaves is still capable of inflicting great damage. The owner may also, at a command, summon a piece of metal instead of a plasma filament and use the object as a normal sword, this is usually done when there is a danger of someone else touching it.

Star-Fury Attack: The Space Sword does d6+1w/2d6w/d4+3m Energy damage of Good intensity using the Melee Weapons -- Powered skill. An enterprising and clever Adept with an applicable form of Matter or Energy Control may wish to fling some superheated air out of the magnetic field and into an opponent; resolve this as you would a thrown attack, using the applicable Matter/Energy Control skill in place of Athletics -- Throw and using WIL rather than STR to determine range.

TOUCH OF THE STAR-MAKER: A rarity among Senshi artifacts, the Touch of the Star-Maker was created by its current wielder in a fusion of arcane Planetary Sorcery powers and contemporary Gravity Age technology. It appears as a black glove of unknown, nonreflective material, elbow-length, with brushed steel rings hovering around each knuckle with no visible means of support.

Its wielder is the Senshi guardian of the planet Bazaar, capital of the Rigunmor Star Consortium, one of the thirteen stellar nations recognized by the 2472 Treaty of Concord. Though his title is technically "Sailor Bazaar", he prefers to go by the moniker "The Star-Maker". The form of this artifact has nothing to do with his function, it was made as a glove because "The Star-Maker" originally wanted to name the artifact "The Invisible Hand of the Market". The Executive Guilder said that was over the line, thankfully. Nobody could take "Sailor Invisible Hand" seriously.

Virtual Matter Creation: People get the Star Consortium all wrong. They're not about greed... well, okay, they're about greed. But they're not about taking things from others, they're about finding people the things they need. And, the Star-Maker figured, the Senshi guardian of the Star Consortium's capital should exemplify this: he'll find what's needed out of thin air. The Star-Maker can conjure up to 100kg of virtual material in any shape he so desires -- there is no restriction as to the shape or material they can be constructed from, but they cannot have electronic or mechanical components. Creating this matter takes 1 round per 20kg of material. Created material lasts a maximum of 1 hour per day, regardless of the quantity in use -- create 1kg of matter and it will disappear in one hour and no further summoning will be possible for the rest of the day. For every 10 minutes the virtual matter is in use, the user takes 1 stun point.

This cannot be used to create food, water, or other consumables, as they vanish after an hour whether or not they've been eaten, but it can be used to provide a variety of useful tools. Bridge gaps, shield against attacks, seal hull breaches, climb a ladder out of a pit, pull a sword on a foe... all sorts of useful things. What the Star-Maker won't do, however, is trade away any of these things for actual money, as that is fraud and the Consortium does not support fraud. He has been known to rent them.

Star Transceiver: Of course, commerce is really about communication. What use is having what someone needs if you've no way to tell him about it? Even the faster than light communication of the drivewave places an 11-hour delay on any communication, making conversation impossible. The Star-Maker, however, can speak to any person he's met within a 50-light-year radius and conduct a normal conversation as if they were merely on another continent of the same planet. An Awareness -- Intuition check is required to get the psionic lock to the target, and conversation is limited to a total of 10 minutes per day, the device's user receiving 1 stun damage per minute.

Energy Cost: The device's powers take Stun points to use, as noted above.

DEEP AQUA MIRROR: One of the three Talismans, this device passed down to Sailor Neptune allows the user to scry the truth in multiple ways. The device resembles a mundane hand mirror, 10cm x 15cm, of golden-yellow material with an aquamarine back etched with the symbol of Neptune. As the Outer Senshi were said to combat threats from outside the solar system, the ownership of the Space Sword and Deep Aqua Mirror suggests a dynamic wherein Sailor Uranus leads the conventional military in direct conflict, while Sailor Neptune's subordinates perform reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering, perhaps also serving as internal security or perhaps leaving this duty to Sailor Saturn. Like the Garnet Orb / Staff, it can be used as a focus for magical attacks but has no capability to attack on its own.

Find Weakness: The bearer of the Mirror is likely to find herself in combat fairly often, and the scrying power of the Mirror is just as useful here as it is in preparation before the fight. The user of the device may attempt an Awareness -- Intuition check while thinking of a specific enemy, this enemy may be anywhere, but if he's not within sensory range the check has a +2 penalty. An Ordinary success allows the user of the Mirror to be aware of any special weaknesses the target has, as well as his defensive capabilities, Durability, etc... Essentially, the character (and player) get any information on the opponent's character sheet that relates to his physical capabilities, and not mental state, motivation, knowledge etc. On a Good success, the user as well as anyone who can see into the mirror at the time it is used get a -1 step bonus on any skill checks made to directly attack the opponent within the next 24 hours. On an Amazing success, this bonus increases to -2. Use of this takes 1 action and after it is performed the user may act normally for the rest of the round.

Scrying: The Mirror can be used to gaze at distant locations, forewarning, and thus forearming, its wielder. The bearer of the Aqua Mirror can, once per hour, use the ESP -- Clairvoyance skill as if she had 1 rank in it by looking into the Mirror and clearly imagining the area she wishes to observe. Note that this doesn't have to be an area she has ever seen before, she merely has to imagine what she thinks it looks like -- and that usually looks nothing like the real thing, once she sees it.

Mental Instability: Unfortunately, the Mirror's scrying abilities come with side effects. The Mirror's holder does not become more perceptive... but she thinks she does, in and out of Senshi form, spotting subtle cues of derision and betrayal coming from the people around her. Most of the time they're minor and easily written off as being from other sources, but they do add up. Once per adventure or once per month, the Aqua Mirror's owner must make a Resolve -- Mental Resolve check to avoid a bout of paranoia. On a Good or Amazing success, the hero suffers no ill effects; on an Ordinary success, the hero becomes suspicious of everyone around her for d4 says, suffering a +1 penalty to the use of all INT, WIL and PER-based skills. On a Failure, the penalty is +2 and the duration is 2d4 days, and on a Critical Failure, the character is incapacitated by raging paranoia for d4 weeks.

MERCURY COMPUTER: An advanced computer enhanced with divination and scrying magics of the Silver Millennium to make an approximation of a quantum computer, the Mercury Computer is used by Sailor Mercury to provide tactical and strategic information to the rest of the Sailor Senshi. The user-interface device resembles a palm-top computer, or one of those "Wizard" day-planners, with the modified symbol of the planet Mercury on the case. The display device is a translucent blue visor that extends over the eyes by tapping an earring, this allows full battlefield visibility while still conveying useful information. The user-interface device often thought of as the "Mercury Computer" is not the computer itself, however -- the Mercury Computer itself is buried underground in Argentina and communicates with the keyboard and visor via teleportation magics approximating a wireless connection.

Find Weakness: The Mercury Computer's visor has the same ability to Find Weakness as the Deep Aqua Mirror, as noted above, although the bonuses to attacks against a target can be conferred to another by relaying the information to them if they can't see the visor. The skill governing this ability is Knowledge -- Computer Operation instead of Awareness -- Intuition.

Analysis: The Visor's scanning equipment and the Computer's quantum computing power allow it to analyze, locate, and categorize energy signatures with near-perfect accuracy. Thermal, electric, bioelectric, sonic, psionic, and several types of magical energy can be analyzed, displayed, mapped, and collated. To increase the range of the scanning ability, some precision was sacrificed; a Knowledge -- Computer Operation check must be made to use this ability with a cumulative +1 penalty for every 50m of distance between the user and the target of the scan; failure indicates inaccurate or unusable results.

SILVER CRYSTAL: The Silver Crystal or "Ginzuishou" is the heart of power held by Queen Serenity. It is said to have the power to raise the dead, reshape reality, cloud and control minds, stop warship-caliber attacks dead in their tracks, and perhaps other things as well. Its use for any purpose, peaceful or hostile, was declared a war crime in 2312 by the Treaty of Earth that ended the First Galactic War and created the Union of Sol.

The Silver Crystal's massive scope of powers make it inappropriate for any player character in nearly any campaign, and are so great as to defy categorization in any rules system. 


	7. Double Jeopardy

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

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The man in black smiled, narrow, malicious. There were police officers nearby so he couldn't let them see ALL of his teeth, but he got the message across all the same. "Well, if it isn't Itohiro Nakami! We didn't expect to find you here, judging by your history. The Director of the Hoffmann Institute... I wonder if should buy a lottery ticket!"

Nakami sneered, and the man in black knew that the expression he saw wasn't his real face, that it was an illusion. "So who sent you, G-Man? Is it the CXS? Bildebergs? Are you working for the Ahotti?"

The man in black nodded toward the officers emerging from the guest room, and Nakami, Nadine, and Philip turned around to see what he was indicating. The three agents were bound at the wrists, two with handcuffs and one with a plastic tie. Nakami, of course, was wearing the same clothing he always wore, a rumpled and creased white shirt and slacks and a red tie with a coffee ring on it. Philip and Nadine were in over-large blue jeans, Phil wore a large button-up flannel shirt that had seen better days and Nadine had an oversize T-shirt that had a bald eagle holding an M16 and the words "DON'T MESS WITH THE U.S."

Three of Tokyo's finest -- as the saying goes, though in a city where magic princesses fight monsters it may not be as applicable -- had emerged from the room the Hoffmann agents had hoped to use as lodgings, one of them holding an M16 assault rifle, one holding a Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle, and one holding two Ziploc bags filled with mixed calibers of ammunition. The three agents turned back, faces reddening in embarrassment and rage, and the man in black threw back his head and laughed. "You know, Nakami-chan, for someone who purports to be from this country you could sure stand to learn a lot about its gun laws! With such a good reason for the Tokyo police to come after you, I don't know why you would think I'd need to be motivated by any third party..."

He leaned in close to what he saw as Nakami's face, then after a couple seconds lowered his gaze a few more inches to stare into where the Fraal's eyes would actually be located, and continued in a voice only Nakami could hear, "...especially when I have so very, very many reasons that are entirely my own." He lowered his sunglasses so only Nakami could see the milky white orbs beneath them, hissed, then pulled them back on and stood upright once more.

Philip looked like he wanted to punch the man in black in the face, but his hands were cuffed behind him and he doubted he could kick higher than his waist. "You can't arrest me," he said angrily, "I'm an American citizen, I demand to be taken to the embassy!" He knew it wouldn't matter, and he'd be no better off there than in Japanese prison, but he wanted to feel like he was doing something.

"Agent Statler-san," said the policeman holding the M16 once the outburst was over. "We've found some of the contraband you predicted, but there are two pistols still unaccounted for." He nodded back at the guest room. "We found some other materials as well -- what looks like laboratory equipment, a great deal of paper notes, and a large number of lamps. Should we call for a haz-mat team, do you think they're...?"

Statler looked off to the side and chuckled. "Oh yeah, the lamps were a great idea. Because, you know, nobody could just come out twenty feet away and open the unlocked, paper door that doesn't have any guards on it. My God, you people are stupid." The policeman started to open his mouth and Statler waved his hand. "No, no, no, it's okay. Nothing wrong with that stuff, and it's not our problem anyway. In fact..." He stroked his chin. "In fact I think we can leave it here. We don't want to make a scene, do we? I know where the rest of the cache is and I'll be arresting them momentarily. Putting up police tape and those little numbers by all the objects will just draw totally unnecessary attention."

The officer looked perplexed. "...Sir? We only use the little numbers at a murder, and it's highly irregular not to take all the evidence from a crime scene..."

Statler extended a gloved hand into the officer's face and snapped it as if he was trying to get a child's attention. "I am in command of this operation, aren't I?" Statler waited a couple seconds, staring at the officer until he realized he was supposed to nod. "And I am the one working for the FBI, right?" He nodded again. "And if it's my experienced FBI counterterrorism anti-smuggling opinion that we leave the stuff here just like we found it, what are you going to do, Minori-chan?"

The Hoffmann agents wondered what the hell kind of trap he was setting if he already knew where all of them were. Officer Minori looked uncertain for a few moments, then said "I'll... leave the stuff here just like we found it?"

"That's right, Minori-chan!" said Statler in the voice one usually reserves for telling children it's great that they used the potty. "Because if you didn't, that would mean you're making waves! And what do I hate, Minori-chan?"

Nadine put on an expression of mock befuddlement. "Could it be... people who make waves, sensei?"

Statler laughed like a seal barks. "Ha! You're a real funny one, Nadine-chan. Your life has always been useless and in a week when the police beat all of you to death with hoses not one single person on this Earth will remember anything you did. Wocka-wocka!" He threw out his hands like he was ending a tap routine and held a phony smile for a few moments, enough to let the mockery sink in, then returned to a normal standing position. "Now if all of you will excuse me, I've got to make sure your littlest felon comes along as quietly as you." He began to walk off, then spied the elderly shrinekeeper transfixed with shock at the fact the police were here arresting people. He was holding an orange he must have been planning to use to make lunch with, and Statler snatched it out of the old man's hand with a flourish and disappeared behind a corner.

"You can't do this to us!" Nadine screamed as the policemen started to lead them down to the squad car. "We know our rights!"

Phil would have palmed his face if his hands were free. "No we don't, Nadine. We're in Japan, as far as I can tell we don't have any rights!"

"The American Miranda law does not apply here," said Officer Minori in a voice as patient as he could make it sound. "but though you do not have a right to counsel you do have a right to silence. Please exercise it."

"This is all your fault, Nakami," said Phil heedless of the officer's request. "I thought you were supposed to have friends in high places! Allies! You could... CONVINCE people to DO things!"

"And I WOULD," growled Nakami, "if not for the fact that I've been awake for twenty-nine hours straight and if I don't get a shot of something soon I'm going to pass out and that'll cause a major LOSS of FACE!"

"Hey!" shouted the officer pushing Nakami. "No more talking in code! You don't have a right to talk in code!"

"Don't tell me what not to say!" yelled Nakami as they pushed him into the car, becoming more and more frenzied and panicked. "Do you have any idea who I am? I'll have your badge for this! I'll have all your badges! If your dogs have badges, I'll have -- OW!"

A half-eaten orange bounced off Nakami's head and rolled underneath the car.

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 7: DOUBLE JEOPARDY ∙ ∙ ∙

JUUBAN DISTRICT, OUTSIDE CROWN GAME CENTER TOKYO, JAPAN MONDAY FEBRUARY 21, 1995 1:33 PM

"So you go to HELL, tux-boy! You don't know ME, you don't know what I DO, you don't know what I AM, you don't know shit about shit! Having nicer clothes and more money doesn't make you better than me! It doesn't make you SHIT! You just come on in here and think because you got goddamn roses and lasers that makes you some kind of rock star..."

Tuxedo Kamen took off his mask and rubbed his eyes. Sailor Moon's arm didn't hurt any more, because it was completely asleep. The daimon had only really been talking for two or three minutes, but that felt like an eternity when your arm's in a hammerlock being maintained by a screechy daimon who's trying to convince you you're no better than it. About seven or eight meters away, on opposite sides of the street, Mars and Mercury stood with their hands trained on the daimon's head, attacks at the ready for the instant Moon got out of the hold. Venus was maybe five more meters past them; she'd helped the dark-haired woman off the sidewalk and now appeared to be conferring with the two foreigners on the tactical situation, and how to incorporate them into the Senshi's battle plan.

"So, you people look like you do this often," said Donna as she worked her shoulders around, "is everything in Tokyo this stupid?"

Venus wanted to correct her about the seriousness of the situation, about the stakes they were dealing with, but in good conscience she couldn't say anything other than "...Yeah. Yeah, it is. So you're the ones who found Sailor Saturn, I assume?"

Donna arched an eyebrow. "That depends. Do you want to kill her?"

"Donna," said Bill with a roll of his eyes, "if she does you just told her anyway."

"You met Uranus and Neptune, I take it," said Venus. "We don't want to hurt Saturn. She's our friend, and we've been very worried about her. She hasn't been hurt, has she?"

"No!" said Donna, disproportionately insulted.

"Yes, she has," said Bill at almost the same time. He looked at Donna's expression and hastily added, "Not by us, though! She was in a fight with a few of those daimon-things. And then she got shot a couple times by a shadow guy."

"And you know you people have like bulletproof armor and magic healing powers! She's fine now!" Donna looked from side to side, then pensively added, "Uh, by 'you people' I mean, like planet-sailors, not 'Japanese people.'"

Venus sighed and scoffed at the same time, no easy feat. "Yes, I know that you don't think Japanese people all have magic powers. I'm just happy that she's okay and that you don't want to use her to end the world. We've had some of that lately."

"...The hell?" Bill looked behind them at a manhole cover in the middle of the street that appeared to have come loose in the middle of their conversation and was now forming a crescent-moon shape over the dark shaft it was supposed to seal. He held out two fingers to Venus and held up his gun with his other hand as he walked away from them to investigate. "Hang on, I think there might be another MOTHERFU--"

The manhole cover twirled upward like a flipped coin and from the pit there came a shape, white and glistening and sharp, that hit Bill in the chest like a concrete block dropped from an overpass. He fell backwards to the ground, gun knocked out of his reach, and his hands were engaged in batting away the frenzied attacks of the saurian creature. It was something like a small dinosaur, with webbed feet planted on Bill's stomach, three-fingered hands wrapped around a short hand-axe it was trying to bury into his head, skin of ivory scales, and a head featuring a wide, bony crest, bright blue-green eyes, and a wide mouth filled with serrated teeth. They poured out of the open manhole with preternatural speed, clutching axes, spears and swords that looked to be made of scavenged car parts and garden tools, hissing menacingly.

"Daimons! AMBUSH!" shouted Venus, pointing her index and middle fingers outward and making a split-second decision to determine which was the priority target.

"Kinori! AMBUSH!" shouted Donna in English at the same moment, spreading her legs into a firing stance and aiming for the head of the lizard perched on Bill.

"No! No, you get back the hell in there!" screamed U-Kigumoko. "You wait for the signal and I did not give the signal yet! I don't need your help for any of this!" She let go of one of Moon's arms so she could point at the pack of lizards as they fanned out. "So you get your little gay-ass spears and you get back in that hole and don't come out until you're telling the Master how I -- OW!" Moon, one of her arms now freed, threw an elbow into the daimon's nose. The impact wasn't that hard but it was unexpected, and the daimon let go of her other arm to grab at her face. "You bitch, that HURT!"

Moon took a few steps and turned around, rubbing her numb wrist, then realized the daimon was still standing on the Moon Rod. There were six of the white lizards around the manhole now, and a seventh that looked like them save that his scales were ebony-black. The black scaled one shouted back to the daimon, and its speech was closer to a dog barking than a snake hissing. "Silence, egg! Surface-dwellers are to perish, not to talk to! You take too long! KILL THEM!"

And then everything was in motion. The lizard-things ran outward, their gate clumsy and waddling but their pace fast enough to compensate; two went for Venus, two went for Donna, one was already on top of Bill, and the last made for Mars. The blackscale walked toward Sailor Moon, his gait much smoother and more assured, and he appeared unarmed but Moon couldn't see what he had strapped to his back. Donna squeezed off one pot shot at the creature pinning her companion before the other two kinori closed in, but it ricocheted harmlessly off the crest on its head. She shifted her aim and started firing at the creatures closing in on her, alternating her shots between the two of them. Each hit caused them to flinch while broken scales flew off them, but they weren't slowed enough to create any kind of comfortable gap.

Venus held out both hands at the creatures advancing on her and braced her knees, even though she knew she didn't have recoil to deal with the motion was instinctual. "Double Crescent Beam!" she shouted, and the fingertips of both hands erupted with light. The yellow beam from her left hand went clear over its target's head, but the right beam caught its target square in the chest. Its bright aquamarine eyes went wide with shock and it reeled backwards as if it had been kicked... but not as if it had been shot, and as the left creature reached her with its spear, the right one shook off the impact and started running for Mercury.

Mars fired off a Burning Mandala and tried to spread it to hit more than one of them, to little success. She missed the ones on Donna and nearly scorched her in the process, the black one seemed to ignore the attack, and the white one running for her reeled, its skin crackled, but it did not fall. It started to advance once more and then shrieked in pain, clutching at an eye that now had a long-stemmed rose protruding from it.

Mercury attacked the daimon now that she no longer had her human shield, but of course the daimon sidestepped her Shine Aqua Illusion and snorted derisively at the effort. She wished she could do some kind of predictive tracking or analyze any weaknesses the daimon had, but her visor was giving her nothing but static. There was some kind of massive electromagnetic disturbance in the area, perhaps part of the ambush was a device to disable her visor. It hadn't been working since the daimon appeared, but nothing about U-Kigumoko seemed all that magnetic. But then again when she slapped Mercury aside like a wimpy American football linesman, the visor shorted out altogether, so maybe that was it. As Mercury fell backwards, she saw the daimon slap aside a kinori that appeared to have been charging her from behind, it reacted to the betrayal with an inarticulate yelp.

Moon grabbed at the Rod that had been knocked to the ground, her arm experiencing that tingly pins-and-needles sensation as feeling returned to it. The blackscale advanced on her, heedless of the bedlam going on around it, and performed something that must have been a smile for a species with no lips. "No more games for Surface-Queen! Now you get to play death!"

Venus ducked backwards to avoid a spear thrust that would have given her a new eye socket, then momentarily abandoned the possibility of attack to concentrate on avoiding the lightning-fast flurry of thrusts and swings it was sending at her. With no weapon of her own to parry, she ducked, jumped, sidestepped, spun, flipped, each time barely avoiding the weapon's deadly point. It was an inelegant, frenzied dance, but it was a dance that kept her alive. Over the crest of the kinori's head she saw Donna faring no better, she'd broken into a full run as one of the creatures chased her, she was screaming either in pain or terror. The one on top of Bill looked like it was trying to gnaw off his hand, at least until the back of its head exploded and Bill pulled a blood-soaked hand clutching a blood-soaked gun out of the creature's mouth. The corpse fell to the street like a bag of cement, showing no indication it would disappear in a puff and revert back to whatever it was made of.

U-Kigumoko reached the streetlight pole she was running toward, clapped and rubbed her palms together, then jumped. She kicked off of the wall behind the pole, kicked the pole as she reached the apogee of her arc, kicked the wall again to rise even further, and smacked the back of her head against the light pole with a reverberating 'WHONG'. She fell to the sidewalk, snapped her head around to see if anyone saw that, then muttered "Tell me I take too long, don't need your goddamn help, think I can't take care of these idiots by myself..." as she cupped her hands around the pole and 'walked' up the surface to get to the rooftop of the adjacent building.

Moon rose from the ground with the Rod clutched uneasily in her hand, took a deep breath, closed one eye, and nailed the blackscale right between the eyes with a Moon Spiral Heart Attack. He laughed, a horridly forced noise, and didn't seem to react to the attack in any other way. "Magics can't work on me, Surface-Queen! We bathe in your font of magic every day -- can't hurt us, now! Your weapons, though, your weapons very good at killing your kind!" His clawed hands reached for the object he had strapped to his back and returned with an old lever-action shotgun.

"Take heart, Sailor Senshi... and others!" shouted Tuxedo Kamen with a quick glance at the man with the bloody Magnum and the woman screaming a string of obscenities as a monster chased her around in narrow circles in the middle of the street. "Don't give up, and you can defeat this foe!" He reached into his jacket and threw another rose at the blackscale that pulled a gun on Sailor Moon; his hand darted from the barrel and snatched the rose out of the air like he knew it was coming. Tuxedo Kamen grimaced and reached for another rose, and that's when U-Kigumoko shoulder-tackled him to floor.

Bill's face was now a scowl that could curdle milk at ten paces, blood oozing from puncture marks on his right arm, seeping downward to mix with the slightly darker blood of the kinori, running in thin rivers over his knuckles, dripping off the tip of his gun. He stomped toward Donna and her lizard attacker; she remembered reading in a dentist's office that if an alligator was chasing you the trick was to run in a circle because they don't corner well and apparently that applied to kinori too. "That is IT!" Bill shouted, "I have HAD IT with your bullshit, Tokyo!" The kinori turned toward him just as he grabbed the crest on the back of it head and yanked it toward him, shoving the barrel of his gun into the creature's eye. He pulled the trigger once, then again, then again, becoming more and more frustrated each time when the only thing that came out was a clicking noise. More disgusted than afraid at the fact he was holding onto the head of a creature that meant to kill him with an axe, he shouted "Goddamned blood got the bullets wet!" to nobody in particular, right before the kinori's wild defensive swing embedded the axe-blade deep enough into his thigh to touch bone.

The one with the rose in its eye flailed about on the ground, limbs and tail twitching like a lizard epileptic as he swatted at the flower poking out of his skull, the thorns leaving it unable to pull the rose out without painfully shredding his eye tissue. Mars windmilled her arm around, tracing out another ring of fire with her fingertip, hissing "Burningmandaaa..." through her gritted teeth but not finishing the attack, leaving the hoop of flame to hang in the air for a few seconds as a spear-wielding kinori closed the distance between them. Just half a second before it leapt through and skewer her she bellowed the last syllable of the invocation and blasted the creature with all eight spheres of flame at the same time, each of them making a satisfying WHUD as they connected. It staggered backward with each impact and by the sixth the kinori completely lost his balance and fell to the ground, where Sailor Mars began to stomp on its prone form, flames licking at her calves.

The rooftop had been covered in gravel, and it crunched and crackled as Tuxedo Kamen fell against it. His jacket was scuffed and torn, his hat rolled away in the breeze like a lazy tumbleweed, his white mask cracked, bent, flew from his face and twirled to the ground like a maple seed. U-Kigumoko had one hand on his throat, sitting on his chest and pinning his arms with her knees, and with her other hand was punching him in the face repeatedly, he felt the tiny stones digging into the back of his head every time she did. "Do you have any idea what you SOUND LIKE?" she howled, punctuated by the noises of flesh colliding with flesh and stones rubbing against stones. "You show up dressed like you think you're Sean Goddamned Connery, throwing ROSES around, and you're like," she curled her lip to bare her teeth, seemingly heedless of Tuxedo Kamen's efforts to work his arm free from under her leg, "'Derr, look at me and my fancy suit! I think I'll babble on about love and purity for a while! Hurfa durfa durfa doo! Don't run away girls, I will throw a daff-oh-dill at the -- eyahme --'" The daimon looked down to see that Kamen had worked his arm free and grabbed the side of her face, two fingers hooked into her cheek and one right at the edge of her nostril. "Ah, oo heece oh hit," she said around his gloved hand, then he yanked downward and brought the side of her head into the gravel.

"Many subjects, huh, Surface-Queen?" said the blackscale kinori. He held his elbow over the shotgun, pointed it at Sailor Mercury right as she rose to her feet, and pulled the trigger. Stinging lead pellets struck her all over her torso, arm, and thigh, though her reflexive movement to cover her face left it mostly unharmed. With a strangled squeal that didn't have the energy to be a scream, she fell once more to the sidewalk. "Perhaps if you were a better queen, they'd be loyal to you too, yes?" He worked the lever-action, ejected the spent shell, and brought the barrel underneath his wide mouth and Moon heard air hiss out of it, though he didn't have any lips he was clearly blowing the smoke off the barrel. "Leave your gate-keeper all alone to watch us, in our hatchery? Gate-keeper saw enough to know she liked kinori more than surface-dwellers!"

There was only one person the 'Gate-keeper' could be. "That's a lie!" shouted Moon. "Sailor Pluto could never hurt any of us. She's being controlled by something evil -- and so are you!" She took a step backwards, hands shaking around the Moon Rod. "Whatever it is it told you you're doing, it wants you to end the world!"

"The Master wants to end YOUR world, Surface-Queen! And in that we are of total agreement!" Another burst of flame erupted from Mars, struck the blackscale in the back. The flames curled and licked around him but had no ill effect, and without turning around he put the shotgun on his shoulder and fired back at where the attack had come from. Moon saw he grazed Mars, but most of the pellets hit the creature running up behind her. "Stupid humans, stupid Greys in control too long! Kinori too afraid to change things -- Master 90 show us how!" With one hand pointing at Sailor Moon, he spun his firearm by the lever, trying to work the action by flipping the weapon around in a circle -- a bit before the halfway point of the loop, the weapon slipped out of his three-fingered hand and sailed forward, clattering to the ground. The blackscale barked out something that had to be kinori for 'shit!'

Bill's mouth opened so wide Donna momentarily thought his jaw unhinged, and emitted an unbelievable string of profanity that zigzagged between English and Russian and both simultaneously. The kinori pulled on the axe handle to take it out for another swing, but only managed to wiggle it a bit, the spray of blood from around the wound became a fountain as the axe head was loosened. Bill made a wild, drunken swipe that the kinori easily batted aside with one hand as it tried to yank out its weapon with the other, and right before Bill was certain it was going to come loose and let out a veritable torrent of his blood the kinori's head jerked forward, with Donna's knuckles grasping its crest, and it jerked twice in time with the two gunshots. Donna threw it to the side, showing the two smoking holes at the base of its skull; she was about to say something about Bill being a big crying baby, but once she saw how deep the axe was she shouted "MEDIC! We need the healy-hands over here NOW!" Bill fell forward, the puddle of blood beneath him rapidly becoming a lake.

Tuxedo Kamen rolled out from underneath U-Kigumoko, grabbed his cane from where it had fallen, and came to his feet a couple meters away from her. His hat and mask were gone, though still none could identify him as Chiba Mamoru if they didn't already know. His elegant clothing was scuffed, dirtied, torn, his hair was matted and dusty, his nose and mouth were bleeding and his cheek was starting to swell but somehow, the way he stood, the way he moved, the look of righteous determination in his eyes made him the living portrait of class and sophistication all the same. "You are a skilled fighter, but a skilled villain..." he flipped his cane upward and grabbed it by the handle, holding it like a champion's sword, "...shall never be a match for a virtuous soul!" He spread his feet, put up his arms, sized up her stance.

"Bring it, Boy Scout." The daimon charged him, face twisted in a snarl. Kamen swung the cane at her head, the polished surface leaving a brilliant crescent behind it as if it were a blade. She ducked beneath it, the wind from the attack stirring up her uneven-length hair, and thrust for his kidney. He stepped backwards, leaving her punch short, then swung the cane into her wrist to parry her first follow-up, her next punch he caught in his open hand. She spun around his hand to dodge an overhead swing, twisting her arm around in its socket, than chopped the inside of his elbow to release her other hand. She backed out of range of his cane, rubbed her wrist. "Oh, you're good. Almost good enough to justify all your talk. ALMOST."

"Venus... Love-me... Chain!" gasped out Sailor Venus in between frantic dodges, and like magic -- for it is -- a glowing yellow chain of heart-shaped links appeared in her hand. Twirling like a ballerina to avoid another thrust and build momentum, Venus smacked the kinori in the snout, throwing it off-balance, then while it was stunned wrapped the chain around its spear and yanked it out of its hands. She laughed triumphantly, spun the chain above her head, and lassoed the lizard. It braced its feet, digging its talons into the asphalt as best it could, and as Venus pulled on the chain the kinori pulled back, turning it into a tug-of-war contest. It strained, grunted, but this was Venus's weapon and it was clearly her game, and the kinori was being inexorably pulled toward her. Until one of the other kinori, staggering from a buckshot pellet to the eye, fell backwards onto the chain and it slipped out of Venus's hands.

Sailor Moon and the lizard-man commander made eye contact for a fleeting moment as the lever-action Remington clattered against the street, and the kinori's saurian face had an expression that Sailor Moon could not read, but guessed was either smoldering rage or mortified embarrassment. They dove for the gun simultaneously, arms stretched out in front of them, yelling a cry with no words. The kinori was a split-second faster, but Moon's arm was longer, and she wrapped her hand around the barrel at the same moment that he got his three clawed fingers around the weapon's stock. A third of a second later, their heads collided, the red ornament on Moon's right odango was scraped off against the right side of the kinori's face, the scales on his skin pulled at her hair. She yelped in pain when they pulled apart and his scales yanked her hair out of the ball it had been tied in, and reflexively her hand went up to grab her scalp instead of going down to grab the barrel of the shotgun.

It only delayed her by a second, but it was enough, and the kinori wrested the gun out of her grip. He took a half-step back and, with no other options, Sailor Moon fell toward him, swinging her arms to try and slap the weapon away. When the kinori pulled the trigger, the barrel was pointed right at her navel, about fifteen centimeters away. She stopped, her eyes widened, and she would have screamed in pain if she had any breath left. She reeled backward, almost fell, but caught herself at the last second. Her vision was blurred and her ears were ringing from the gunshot, but she could see through the holes in her uniform that she was barely even bleeding. She laughed in surprise, shook her head around, the hair on the right side of her head splayed about everywhere, and with the pain shaken off she met the kinori's eyes once more. He growled.

Sailor Mercury grimaced, brought her hand to her ear, and tapped her earring. The very edge of the Mercury Visor vanished back into the un-space it normally dwelt in, and the rest of the device fell off from where the piece had vanished and fractured on the sidewalk. It would come back to her in perfect condition the next time she transformed, but right now the damn thing had too many cracks to adequately see through, and the earring only pulled it back until it hit a crack. She was stinging all up her side and her hands; her whole left side felt like one big skinned knee. She rolled on to her back and before she even sat up saw a kinori two, maybe three meters from her, holding a spear, its skin blackened in places by recent application of flame; it must have meant to finish her off before it moved to the others. When it saw her move, it started to run faster, but it couldn't close the distance in the time Mercury could say "Shine Aqua Illusion".

She expected it to flinch, the creatures were clearly magic resistant, and give her time to get up and think of a better way to fight it off. It flinched, drunkenly listed to the side, twitched its head, and staggered toward her at maybe a quarter of the speed it was using. It pushed the spear in her general direction but provided almost no resistance when she grabbed it out of its hands and smacked it on the side of the head with the shaft; he fell over easily. Lizards may be magic resistant, but they were apparently still cold-blooded, and did not respond well to freezing. She pointed the spear straight up and used it to help herself to her feet, taking a quick glance around to survey the situation.

Sailor Mars was wrestling with one of the kinori, and though the creature was disarmed Mercury couldn't tell if it was losing or not. Nearby, another kinori had its webbed foot on the back of Sailor Venus's neck and was choking her with the Love-Me Chain, she had her hands underneath it but didn't have the leverage to pull it off her throat. The red-head was facedown in the street with an axe in his leg, and the woman had taken off her shirt -- she was wearing a bra that looked brand-new and a size too big for her -- to press it against the wound, taking an occasional shot at the kinori choking Venus but not hitting anything one-handed. Two kinori were dead, one more incapacitated with a rose in the eye, one more Mercury had just knocked down. Tuxedo Mask and U-Kigumoko were nowhere to be found, but there were sounds of a struggle from the rooftop. About a block away, and inside of the "youma aura", a black sedan was idling in the center of the street. And the blackscale kinori had just shot Sailor Moon right next to where Mercury was standing, so the course of action was obvious, still it was good to know the situation.

U-Kigumoko and Tuxedo Kamen punched, kicked, and dodged, hands and feet twirling like dead leaves caught in a dust devil. She sent two roundhouse kicks to his face in succession, he ducked under the left foot and caught the right heel in his hand, yanked it up in the air to throw her off her balance and send her to the floor with a yelp. "You are quick," he said, circling around her just outside her reach, "But one who refuses to acknowledge her own weaknesses is not truly aware of her own capabilities. Worse still, you believe your anger to be a strength you draw upon, not something that holds you back." He extended the cane to jab at her, but quickly retracted it when she started to grab on to it. "Humility and temperance are the hallmarks of the true champion, not pride and rage."

"What is it going to take," she growled from the floor, "for you to stop this Mr. Miyagi--" and here the gravel crunched under her palms as she launched upward feet-first, spring-boarding out of the prone position and shouting "--BULLSHIT!" right as the soles of her feet collided with Tuxedo Kamen's face. He fell backwards, kept enough control to roll when he hit the ground and be on his feet again at the same time U-kigumoko jumped at him. "Oh, the warrior has virtue in his heart!" she shouted, and threw a punch at his chest that he blocked, and another at his stomach that he didn't. "The slow blade penetrates the shield!" She grabbed his wrist with both hands, and before she could twist it he struck her in the solar plexus with the base of his palm; she staggered backward, gasping for air, and he swung his cane into the side of her head while she was reeling, then hit her again from the other side. He reached into his jacket for another rose to finish the fight but had it kicked from his hand. The daimon's voice was thin and gasping, she'd had the wind knocked out of her, but still she spoke, saying "Opportunities multiply as they are seized! Your lucky numbers are 3, 5 and 23! Do you have any idea what a laughingstock you are? People are laughing at you!" with such fevered intensity it was as if she thought she could make it all true if she just said it enough times.

The blackscale hissed in disbelief and worked the lever on the shotgun without taking his eyes off of Sailor Moon. "Impossible! Surface-weapons made to kill your kind -- you're dead! Should be dead!" His eyes went wide and he snapped his head in the direction of Sailor Mercury just in time to see the Shine Aqua Illusion strike him in the face. He twitched, ground his teeth, snarled, but didn't seem affected to the same extent as the other one. He saw the kinori next to Mercury listlessly trying to get up and put two and two together. He looked to Sailor Moon, then to Mercury, then back to Moon, howled in frustration and smashed her across the mouth with the butt of the shotgun. "Come BACK for you, Surface-Queen! Master 90 take you all!" Moon fell to the ground, hand over her mouth with blood dripping from between her fingers. As one, all of the still-living kinori's heads jerked in the direction of the manhole they'd climbed out of and they began to retreat; at the same moment there came the sound of tires squealing as the black sedan started to move.

With dizzying speed the blackscale sprinted back to the sewer, head low and tail high forming a line parallel to the ground. The whitescales on Mars and Venus broke away and ran to the manhole, though their speed-waddling gait was not so sleek and elegant as the blackscale. The one with the rose in its eye scrambled on all fours, head and limbs twitching and jerking like a yurei in a cheap horror film. The one that Mercury had hit, though, was trying to run but could manage nothing faster than an easy jog. The others leapt into the hole and vanished into the darkness, but Mercury's target lagged behind them; and right as it got close to the sewer entrance the black sedan had closed the distance, brakes smoking and hissing as it went into a totally needless handbrake turn, spinning ninety degrees and coming to a stop directly over the open manhole. The driver's side window was open, and sticking out from it there was a gloved hand at the end of a black-sleeved arm, holding an enormous black pistol with a barrel so wide it should have had guardrails so children wouldn't fall in. When the car came to a stop, the gun was maybe thirty degrees off from pointing right into the last kinori's face; the man in the car grumbled, shifted his aim, and blew a chunk out of the creature's head.

∙ ∙ ∙

Hotaru had only intended to catch her breath, then get up and find a way out before the police caught on to her, but she was still exhausted from the day before and soon caught herself nodding off. Her eyes snapped open as soon as she realized it and she saw she was no longer wearing Sailor Saturn's clothing, that she was back in her simple black shirt and pants. She thought she must have fallen asleep, or passed out, and that caused her to slip out of the transformation, she had to get out before the police came back and recognized her. She looked up and saw Sailor Saturn standing in the doorway of the shed, illuminated by a soft glowing light from behind her that still allowed Hotaru to see her face, holding the Silence Glaive perfectly straight beside her and looking Messianic. She realized she'd fallen asleep, and she still was.

"Hotaru," Saturn said in a voice that was almost like hers, but older and more confident. "I know you're worried. I know you're afraid. But I've come to tell you there's no reason to be. You have the strength to overcome any obstacle, if only you believe it."

Hotaru sighed. "No I don't. You do. Sailor Saturn has the strength, Tomoe Hotaru's just a liability. If you've come here as a glowing vision to tell me about my inner strength when you're doing all the work... then, then I think you've wasted your time."

Saturn took a step forward, carefully tilting the Glaive so it wouldn't slice into the doorframe, and closed the door behind her. There was no more light spilling in from the doorway, and no visible light source in the shed, but everything was still fully visible as if they were in especially bright candlelight. "But Hotaru, YOU are Sailor Saturn now! I may be the first Sailor Saturn, but the power is etched into my soul -- into your soul. You are noble, and virtuous, and there can be no strength I have that you do not share."

"It's a horrible power," she muttered while looking off to the side. "What kind of madmen would ask anyone, much less a child, to hold that hideous strength?" Her eyes welled. "What noble might is there in mass murder? How can I be such a good person when what's etched into my soul is the potential for six billion deaths waiting to be unleashed?"

Saturn carefully leaned the Glaive against the wall so it couldn't slice through it, then crouched down beside Hotaru. "Hotaru, Hotaru... you're not a murderer. The power of Saturn isn't murder --"

Hotaru's face turned red, her hands balled into fists. "I don't see how the power to kill every living thing on the planet Earth counts as anything but murder! That's what I'm supposed to do, isn't it? Kill off planets! That's my job! Is it, is it supposed to be okay to kill people if I think their society isn't good enough?"

Saturn laid a hand on Hotaru's shoulder, just to let her know someone was there for her. "No, Hotaru. It isn't okay. But that isn't what being Sailor Saturn is about. When Queen Serenity granted it to me, she didn't want someone to run around and kill planets... she was saying to me, 'Princess Hangaku, the Silver Millennium trusts your judgment and your virtue so totally that we'd even trust you with the power to wipe out entire worlds, because we know that you could never misuse it.' The mantle of Saturn is not a murderer's fate... it is a testament to your unimpeachable virtue."

Hotaru pushed Saturn's hand away. "No. It's a testament to YOUR unimpeachable virtue. You're the perfect princess who earned it, it fell onto me. I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but I've read enough to know -- someone like me, someone who had my history, I'm a serial killer waiting to happen." She looked down, slowly exhaled. "I've already killed. I bring nothing but suffering and misery to everyone around me. You were impeccable and pure, you could have been Mahatma Gandhi, but if you wanted virtue and goodness in your successor, I don't think you looked hard enough."

"But Hotaru, I know that's not what you're doing," said Saturn, and she stood up and walked back to the door. "Because you and I are far more alike than you're willing to give yourself credit for. You know that I was pure and good, you say that I could be trusted... but Hotaru, you and I are the same person."

Hotaru suddenly found herself standing by the door, in Sailor Saturn's outfit, looking down at a girl with dark purple hair and violet eyes in a black shirt and pants. She was disoriented for a moment by the unexpected movement, but she doubted it was as much as Sailor Saturn -- or Princess Hangaku, now that she was out of the uniform -- intended it to be, since it was quite clear the they were not the same person, that they had switched clothes and places. Hangaku was taller than Hotaru was, and Hotaru's clothes didn't cover her navel or ankles, the ankles had marks on them like cord had been wrapped around them, and tight. There was a red scar running across Hangaku's neck, thin but bright and angry, and her eyes widened she she realized Hotaru was staring at it; her hands darted to her neck to cover it up and Hotaru saw her left hand was missing three fingers. Hangaku flushed red with embarrassment.

"...So," said Hotaru after a long pause, and put her finger underneath Sailor Saturn's dark purple choker, "Is that what this is supposed to cover up?"

"No..." said Hangaku. She pulled her knees up to her chest and crossed her arms over them, thought about it for a few seconds. "No, it's just a coincidence. I didn't... didn't know it would show up, and I always had the choker on, so I couldn't see it."

"What happened?"

Hangaku sighed. "It was near the end of the Silver Millennium's reign, and there was a sage, Beryl, who was gathering an army on Earth, drumming up support for a war on the Moon. All of the nobles were worried about the threat she posed, about what little of a standing army we had, all the damage she could do if diplomacy failed and there was open hostility. Everyone was afraid, and they were working out all the possible options they had -- just, you know, just to see what was possible. And someone, some nobleman suggested that if worse came to worse, and it looked like Beryl was about to launch an attack, that they send me to Earth and cleanse it."

"That... that's horrible. No, it's horrific." Hotaru didn't look angry so much as queasy.

Hangaku nodded ruefully. "That's what I thought. And when Queen Serenity didn't reject it out of hand, I decided I would commit jigai -- the, uh, noblewoman's honorable suicide, like seppuku -- in protest. I went back to my quarters, tied my ankles together, and tried to cut my jugular with the Glaive but, only I pushed a bit too hard, and, you know, it's so sharp..." her voice dropped to a near-inaudible mumble, "...and it ended up slicing clean through the neck."

Hotaru nodded slowly, sorrowfully, and when she spoke there was nothing but melancholy. "So we really do have more in common than I thought -- no, that isn't... I'm so sorry."

"No, no, you're right!" Hangaku said, trying to salvage the conversation. "I ended my own life rather than see myself cause that kind of suffering. And, and I know you would too. You want to kill yourself now, because you think you can't be trusted and you don't deserve to be Sailor Saturn, but doesn't that prove you can be trusted, that you are living up to it?"

She bit her lip. "...What happened to your fingers?"

Hangaku looked at her hand and chuckled nervously. "I, uh, it was my first time using the Glaive." She put on a weak smile. "But that just shows that you don't have to be perfect to be Sailor Saturn, you just have to be good where it counts, right? And I know you're a good person, Hotaru. I know it and I feel it and..." she let out a long sigh, "and I know you don't believe it and that I made a fool of myself but all I want is for you to see it too, you've been given this wellspring of hope and light within you and it's so sad that you can't see it..."

Hotaru wanted to ask if there was any good part of her that she hadn't had passed on, or if it was that everything good was Hangaku's and everything bad was Hotaru's, but she knew she couldn't get a straight answer. Her past reincarnation wasn't very helpful, just giving out platitudes without working out what they meant... but she had helped a little, if only to show that Hotaru wasn't expected to be perfect. Hotaru knew she would fail to live up to any expectation, but knowing that Princess Saturn had a name and wasn't the perfect figure she'd built her up to be was for some reason very comforting.

After a prolonged silence, Hangaku said "You know I'll be watching over you. I'll help you any way I can, because I love you, and there are so many other people who love you too. But it's time for me to leave for now, you'll need to be awake." They switched places again, Hotaru more ready this time, and Sailor Saturn opened the door, picked up the Glaive and started to leave.

Something occurred to Hotaru and she called out before Saturn had made it out the door. "Wait!" Saturn stopped and turned back to her. "When you said that people were talking about that Beryl, and how they could deal with her... were there any aliens there you could go to for help?"

Saturn sighed, because she knew the question Hotaru was really asking. "I... I don't think I can answer that, Hotaru. Whether the Silver Millennium was before or after the aliens showed up, if they started it, if they were ever somewhere other than the Moon... I'm pretty sure that's something you're going to have to work out for yourself."

"But how am I supposed to find out the truth about events that happened thousands of years ago on another planet?"

Saturn sighed and she didn't simply look sad, she looked defeated. "I didn't say 'find out.'" And then she was gone and Hotaru was awake, in a pile of potting soil, wearing the uniform of Sailor Saturn.

∙ ∙ ∙

Donna pushed on the bloody, wadded-up shirt with both hands, holding back a river of red from flowing out of Bill's leg. "I still need some Goddamn help over here! I don't HAVE any magic healing powers!" she yelled, voice hoarse. "Did one of you call an ambu-- oh JESUS CHRIST!"

The driver of the black sedan leaned forward and peeked his head out of the window, and both Donna and Sailor Mercury could have described his pale fish-belly skin, inappropriate Ray-Bans, leechlike lips and smug, malicious smile with their eyes closed. "Hello there, ladies!" he said in Japanese both casual and insincere, "I trust these two hooligans haven't been interfering with Sailor Moon's duties? I would have come for them sooner, but I was cleaning something else up across town."

"I can't see anything," whispered Bill. "Tell me that's a Japanese paramedic talking?"

"It's that damn sharky man in black from before. I don't know what he's saying but I doubt he's going to get a first aid kit."

Bill's eyes shifted downward and he stared right into the surface of the street. "I hate you so much, Tokyo," he whispered.

"Actually," the man in black said, switching to English, "I haven't had the pleasure of meeting you in person, Donna-chaaaan. My name is Agent Statler -- you've met my partner, Agent Waldorf." If Donna hadn't been pressing onto an axe wound, trying to keep her teammate from bleeding to death, she would have groaned. Sailor Mercury and Venus came to her side, trying to see if there was something they could do, but the three of them crowded around could do little more than one could.

"Of course I don't have to have met you to know where you're going" Agent Statler continued, "you people are so predictable. Anywhere there's a mess to be made worse, you'll find the Hoffmann Institute. Honestly, do you people have any individual thoughts or do you work off the same..." He peeked his head out further to look directly at the crowd around Bill. "...Wow. He is really, really bleeding over there, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is!" shouted Mercury. "He's going to die if he doesn't get medical attention right away!"

Statler seemed a bit flummoxed. "Well, geez, don't you have, you know, the magic healing powers?" He looked to each girl in turn, head tilting slightly with each one. "Okay, you don't have anything, you don't have anything, you don't have anything..."

On the rooftop, Tuxedo Kamen caught one of U-Kigumoko's punches with his right hand, then another with his left. They pushed against each other's grip for a few seconds, gazes locked on each other, then Tuxedo Kamen managed to take a step forward and get within range to sweep at the back of her knee with his heel. She yelped and fell forward, he spun around her as she fell, twisted her arm around, and ended with her face in the gravel, his knee between her shoulderblades, her arms pinned to her back. She grunted and struggled futilely. "Are you ready to surrender, demon?" he said, his tone as calm and even as ever.

"You know," she responded with a triumphant sneer, "if you weren't an idiot, you would have sat about twelve centimeters back from where you are now and pinned my legs." He felt her feet hook to the sides of his head and then he was yanked backwards to the ground. The daimon scrambled from underneath him and dropped both of her elbows into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. "I am DONE screwing around with you, tux-boy!" she shouted, and hooked her arms under his shoulders to lift him upward. "So now I'm going to pound you into a crater! How do you feel about that? You got some funny quote for that? 'Cause I'm all ears!"

She dragged him to the edge of the rooftop, stomping his ankles to stop him from finding his footing, and unceremoniously pitched him off; he fell two storied and hit the sidewalk with a thud and a groan. She climbed to the edge and glanced down to line herself up to jump on him, then as she glanced out on the street she noticed the kinori were gone and the Senshi were still there and she'd have to be a stationary target for too long to deal with the tux-guy. "...And I'll be back for the rest of you later!" she shouted, then turned and ran to the opposite edge of the roof. She leapt off to reach the next roof, one street away, but hit the side of the building about two meters from the top; she quickly picked herself up and sprinted into an alleyway.

"And you don't have anything... Oh! There we go!" said Agent Statler as Tuxedo Kamen impacted with the sidewalk. "That's what I was looking for. Hey, uh... Mamoru-chan, come over here, got a job for ya! Somebody want to go get him?"

"Whatever the hell he's talking about, whatever he's telling you to do, don't believe a word of it!" Donna shouted without looking towards him. "He's one of Them! He's the most Them that anyone's ever been!"

"He's telling us to bring Tuxedo Kamen over here to heal your friend's wound," Mercury translated.

"Then forget everything she just said!" said Bill as loudly as he could manage. Mercury and Venus had to lean over to hear him. "Do that! Do it! Get me a tuxedo man right now! I've got a Slayer video coming out of my leg here, I don't wanna die in this hellhole!"

But Sailor Moon didn't need permission, and was already halfway down the block to get Tuxedo Kamen. People were coming back towards them now that the daimon was gone, looking with curiosity, surprise and fear at the two kinori corpses, the bleeding man, and the man in black with the enormous gun. Sailor Mars stayed put, hands extended to aim at Agent Statler in case he tried anything.

"Your name is Hino Rei," he said with the tone of someone who can't believe he has to bother to say these things out loud, "although you don't look like her. You're a miko at the Hikawa shrine, you're wondering if I'm a Death Buster -- which is a stupid name -- you're wondering why the kinori didn't vanish when they died, and you're kind of pissed that you didn't kill any of them. And if you shoot your Flame Sniper or your Fire Soul or your Burning Mandala at me, not only am I going to dodge it, I am going to tell your friends here your deepest, darkest secret."

"...You could have read most of that from a file on me, guessed the rest, and tried to make me think you can read my mind." Mars arched an eyebrow. "You don't know any of my secrets."

"Not until I mentioned them and I got you to think about them! I wonder what Ami-chan and Mina-chan here would think if they knew you lusted after... put 'em down or I'm gonna say it... Mmmmmmaaa..." Mars's hands dropped to her sides, palms flat; it wasn't that she'd rather surrender than have her secret revealed, but if he really could read her mind there wasn't much of a point in attacking him.

Down the street, Sailor Moon leaned over to help Tuxedo Kamen up, but he held out his hand, laid his hand on a couple of places on his legs and torso, and stood on his own. A man of about thirty in a ratty suit and tie was standing right next to them, staring, making no attempt to help or engage in conversation. Statler whistled, tapped the edge of his gun against the side of his car, and generally acted as if he was waiting for a particularly slow elevator. "Soooo... Ami-chan, you been thinking about the question I asked you?"

"I haven't really had a chance!" she replied, astonished he was bringing it up, then leaned in to resume speaking to Bill. "Shh, shh. Don't panic. You're going to be just fine."

"There's an axe in my leg and the Men in Black are about to take me away!" he said in a hoarse whisper that was a close to a yell as he could get. "I don't see how that makes me just fine!"

"Shut up, Bill!" Donna looked around, seeing that there were several people staring at her chest and trying to get a sneak peek of breast, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "The tuxedo dude's going to patch you up and then they're going to magic the piss out of this guy, just keep cool!"

"She doesn't know what she's talking about, does she Ami-chan?" Statler smirked. "Of course good, obedient little girls like you would never do something so crass and rebellious, wouldn't you? Good little girls cooperate with the authorities, and the authorities cooperate with them in return. I left you a present back at the Hikawa shrine -- I'm sure you'll be able to find some use for it and get us out of this mess we're in." There was a sound of car doors closing, and a uniformed officer came into view from behind the sedan, then another. "I couldn't make heads or tails of it myself," Statler finished, then turned to the policeman. "Yes?"

The officer bowed to Statler, a gesture that was not returned, and tried not to stare at the dead lizard-man lying beside his car. "Agent Statler-san, we, uh, we're sorry for being late, but we fell behind you at that stoplight, and then..."

"...And then you drove around in circles because you couldn't find the intersection until just now, yeah, yeah, I know. There's our two perps, right over there." He nodded in the direction of Bill and Donna, which was also the direction of Sailor Venus, Mercury, Moon, and Tuxedo Kamen. After a moment, he added, "The two white people, over there."

Sailor Moon and Venus put their hands on the axe handle and blade and prepared to yank it out, while Tuxedo Kamen maneuvered his hands into position above and below the head. Donna patted one of his shoulders, Mercury the other. "Okay, they're going to have to pull the blade out now," she said evenly into his ear, "on the count of three. Are you ready?"

He shook his head and whimpered, and Donna rolled her eyes. "Bill, either they pull it out now, or you have an axe in your leg for the rest of your life which will be like half an hour at most." He paused, then nodded slowly and ruefully.

"Yes, that's Donna Kimberly Truitt and William Scott Wheeler, two members of the illegal paramilitary group known as the Hoffmann Institute. FBI's been after them for years, and the cooperation of the Tokyo police won't be forgotten."

The officer looked to the girls, to the corpse, to Agent Statler. "Uh... and who are the rest of these people?"

Moon and Venus yanked the axe back and away, and a shower of blood followed it. Tuxedo Kamen quickly moved his hands in to mend the wound, his palms and fingertips glowed as his white gloves soaked red with blood. It took him two passes, but the wound was soon sealed. "They didn't count to three! You said they were going to count to three!" Bill croaked.

"They counted to three in Japanese!" Donna shot back, "We're in Japan, that's what they speak!"

"They're a troupe of Sailor Moon re-enactors," Statler said in a voice that was perfectly suited for explaining 'The Miracle of Corn' to slow-witted children named Billy. "They were rehearsing when these two criminals interrupted them." He gestured to the corpse with his gun. "That's fiberglass."

"That's the real Sailor Moon," Mars countered, "and I'm the real Sailor Mars, and that's a real monster, and he's not with the FBI. The FBI doesn't even have jurisdiction in Japan."

"They really get into their roles, don't they? That's what they call method acting." Statler chortled, saw the officer was about to say something, and cut him off. "Now who are you going to believe, Hiro-chan? One of us is wearing a miniskirt in February, and one of us can write glowing performance reviews, reviews that would be sought out by people who are gunning for that next promotion in the slim hopes that the increased income and status will make their wife Tamiko respect them again so she'll stop having sex with that college dropout in 4G and they'll be a happy couple again and he won't have to eat his service revolver the way he fantasizes about when he's been drinking at home alone. Which one of us would you believe?"

The officer was visibly unsettled. "Uh... uh, the second one?"

"You're damn right you would! Now why don't you and your partner go over there and cuff those two and let these girls get back to their play?" He paused, looked up for a second. "Oh, and the dead youma are evidence, we need to take those with us. Too many people have seen them already."

"I thought they were--"

"They're whatever the hell I say they are!" He pointed toward the group around Bill. "Now march your ass over there and make with the arrests!"

Meanwhile, Donna, Venus and Mercury spoke in hurried whispers. "All right, I've got another magazine on my ankle, but I'll need a second to reload." Donna glanced behind her. "If that cop goes for his gun can you take him out with that finger-laser?"

"No, I, I mean maybe, but--" Venus stammered, "but I can't just attack a policeman! He didn't do anything wrong, and..." and she was about to ask if she even knew that they were the good guys, but she did know that, because the bad guys are always above the law, and because the man in black was clearly a VERY bad guy and he was no friend of theirs. "...and how are we going to get away when everyone is watching us?"

"I don't know, don't you do this all the time? Wing it! I just know I can't take out all of them on my own!"

Mercury swallowed nervously. "Your friend's in too bad a condition to run, but if Statler wanted you dead, I think he'd have killed you by now. You'll just have to go along with them... and we'll see what we can do on our end."

Donna looked disappointed and a bit betrayed, but when the first cuff went over her wrist she didn't struggle. She turned to Statler as she was lead to the squad car and sneered, "Yeah, well, 'Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus,' that's all I have to say to you!"

Statler looked down at the dead kinori for a few confused moments. "Yes... it is?"

∙ ∙ ∙

Uranus glanced at Neptune, then back at the road. "Are we getting closer?"

Neptune shook her head while keeping her eyes on the mirror. "Hard to say. It's moving, fast, and I can't predict where it's going to go, so I keep losing the sighting..."

Uranus's knuckles tightened around the wheel. "I'm not comfortable taking this car out again."

"It was either this, take the bus, or wait for your father to get off work and use his Benz. And we took too long to get down here anyway. Besides," with the hand that wasn't holding the mirror, Neptune held up a red metal bar with two fat hooks on the side, the word 'CLUB' was on it in block print. "We remembered to bring this thing this time, right? Last time was a fluke anyway, the odds anything will happen again are astronomical."

Neptune then looked behind her to make sure no karmic whammy was incoming. The car radio started to warp and distort, and the Suzuki commercial became a stream of static. "It has to be nearby -- let's pull over now and go on foot." Uranus nodded and pulled the canary-yellow 1967 Toyota 2000GT open-top -- one of two in existence -- to the side of the road; it was a little-used side street so she didn't have to parallel park. Neptune got out and leaned over, staring into the mirror, trying to lock on the daimon's position; Uranus was trying to determine how 'The Club' opened up and attached to the wheel. Neptune's eyes widened and she whirled in place, started to scream a warning but it was too late because a karmic whammy named U-Kigumoko had already emerged from the opposite side of the street, vaulted over the passenger's side door, and as Neptune said the word "LOOK--" she kicked Sailor Uranus in the chest with both feet.

Uranus swore and fell backwards to the sidewalk, the Club clattering beside her. "This is a robbery!" shouted the pink-skinned daimon with nonfunctional night-vision goggles growing out of her forehead and a 'grappling hook' hanging from her shoulder like wide loops of hair. "Give me your keys and nobody gets hurt... any more than they already are!"

Neptune wouldn't have agreed even if they did have keys to give away. She took a step backwards,raised her arms, and got to "Deep--" before the daimon leaned forward, grabbed her by the bow on her chest, and yanked her into a gut-punch.

"Again with this!" the daimon shouted in disbelief. She glanced into the car to see if maybe the keys were still in the ignition and she could drive off without getting killed as soon as she left melee range; she saw that it didn't need keys at all. "Don't you people have school? Don't you have other things to do other than bother me? You're not even productive members of society!" She pressed the starter button with her free hand, then flipped the Club upward with her foot, snatched it in one hand, and smashed Uranus's knuckles with it, knocking the Space Sword out of her hands before she could unsheathe it. "And where did you get a car this nice anyway, huh? What, it's not enough you have magic powers, now you've gotta show off how much money you have? Like you're better than me because your daddy gives you more money; you're not even old enough to drive this!" She grabbed Neptune's hair and kneed her in the face, spiked her to the sidewalk like a football. "Well, it's my car now, so who do you think's more of a success!" She vaulted over the door and stomped on the accelerator, the tires squealed and she was off, tearing down the street at breakneck speed, drifting into and out of oncoming traffic that would have been screaming, honking, and swerving out of the way even if she wasn't a daimon.

Uranus fired off a World Shaking at the the fleeing vehicle, but missed the target by a good three meters. As it vanished into the Tokyo smog, she laid on her back on the sidewalk, eye twitching, slowly inhaling and exhaling, trying to contain her white-hot rage. Neptune looked back at her, sincerely worried that she might snap and start beating people with her bare hands. But, after a couple seconds, she exhaled, cracked her neck, recomposed herself, and rose to her feet. As she extended a hand to help Neptune up she said, very matter-of-factly, "I am going to have to see if I can switch places with Sailor Mars, because right now I am at the point where I need to set people on fire."

In the car, U-Kigumoko looked down from the road to fiddle with the radio knob, but could find nothing but static. She switched the radio off and started drumming her fingers on the wheel, bopping her head back and forth, humming to herself, "Here she comes, here comes Speed Racer, she's a daimon on wheels..."

∙ ∙ ∙

"No. No! You are not -- This is the time where I am talking and YOU are listening to the things I am saying!" Takashi Hino's face was red, his eye was twitching, and spittle was collecting in the mouthpiece of his cellular phone as he screamed into it. His other hand ran through his greying hair, ruining his expensive hairstyle. He was standing beneath the torii arch of the Hikawa shrine, pacing an angry path between its two supports, while his assistant Kaidou held a stack of papers and watched on, a smoldering cigarette butt hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

"Oh, oh, you can't tell why I'm angry? You don't think it has something to do with the fact that you had armed thugs storm my father's house, which happens to be one of Tokyo's most significant cultural sites? He's an old man, his constitution is frail, he could have had a heart attack!" His free hand was now waving wildly for emphasis, even though the other end of the conversation couldn't see him; the motion worked his white dress shirt out from his waistband and left it visibly hanging from his jacket. "Yes, I said they are, no, no, --shut up! They're armed thugs because clearly they're not police officers, because if ACTUAL police officers were thinking of raiding a relative of one of the highest ranking members of the LDP, they would have notified me beforehand!"

"No, I will NOT calm down! I'm outraged, because that's what this IS -- an OUTRAGE! Are you trying to humiliate me and my family? What if my daughter had been here, would you have led HER out in handcuffs into a police cruiser where everyone on the street can see her? Because that's about the only way I can think of to perform this operation more shamefully! No, no I don't care that they were harboring -- M16, AK-47, Double-A MCO I don't care if they're mooring a nuclear submarine in the koi pond, if a police officer wants to so much as politely ask my family what time it is, you run it through me first!"

"Oh, oh, the FBI was in charge of this? That's what the last guy said, so I made an overseas call, and you know what the FBI said?" He extended his free hand toward Kaidou, snapped his fingers a couple times. Kaidou nodded, grabbed a sheet of paper and put it in Takashi's hand, he snapped the paper audibly to straighten it out and read from it. "'The Federal Bureau of Investigations has enjoyed a long history of cooperation with Japanese law enforcement, FBI agents serving as advisors and assistants to the already-capable Japanese LEOs in Japanese cases where both nations have an interest, with Japanese officers extending the same courtesy for such cases in the United States. However, no such operations are currently underway and no FBI agents are on official duty anywhere in Japanese territory. As the FBI's jurisdiction is only within the United States, it cannot conduct law enforcement operations within another nation without their consent and cooperation.' Then he paused for about five seconds and told me 'I think what you're thinking of is the CIA.'"

"Yes, I believe him more than you, I talked directly to Louis Freeh... He's the Director of the FBI, that's who! No, it wasn't a direct quote, he said it in English! ... No. no, you know what, I'm done explaining myself to you. I'm Hino Takashi, and when I want to talk to the Superintendent, I talk to the Superintendent, you you had better -- no, don't you put me on hold -- don't you dare put me on hold... He put me on hold. Kaidou?"

"Yes, sir." Kaidou wrote on the back of a manila envelope the name of the assistant who'd put Takashi on hold, then marked a black X next to it. So far, three people were going to never work in Tokyo again, and it would be a fair bit more before things were finished. "Sir, perhaps we would get more favorable results were we to visit in person?"

"No, no..." Takashi waved his hand. "He's undoubtedly fled his office by now to escape the fallout. No, we're going over his head on this one. I think we're going all the way up to the Commissioner-General... I know I have Kunimatsu-san's number here somewhere." He dug in his pockets for the scrap of paper he'd written Kunimatsu Takaji, head of the National Police Agency's phone number on, then hunched over his phone to punch in the digits. While his eyes were looking downwards, his daughter and five more of her friends walked behind him through the torii arch. Rei and Kaidou's eyes met for a moment, then they looked away; the rest made no attempt to greet Takashi or alert him of their presence; Rei had told them that interrupting his Important Business for any purpose was futile.

By the time he'd dialed Kunimatsu's number and looked back up at Kaidou, the girls were gone, inside the building. "There's no point in making connections with those in power if you're too afraid to use them, Kaidou-san," he said while the phone rang. "In this business sometimes you have to go straight to the top, in order to stay on top of things."

"It would appear so, sir."

∙

"Hello, Rei-san, Mamoru-san, Usagi-san, and... no, don't tell me... Ami, Minako... Oh, of course, Chibi-Usa!" Rei's grandfather greeted them from a cushion across the room, a simple teacup in his hands. "Your friend Mako-san said school got out early?"

"There was a gas leak," said Ami.

"Federal holiday," said Minako at the same time. "Uh, which we wouldn't get off normally, if the gas wasn't leaking."

Rei quickly cut off the avenue of discussion before it could dig itself any deeper. "What happened here, Grandfather? It must be something major for Father to be here, Makoto didn't say much over the phone."

He took a long sip of his tea and smacked his lips. "Ohh, that's good stuff." He then turned to her as if he'd just now noticed she was there. "Oh, nothing, really. Turns out those TV producers were wanted criminals, the police came by to take them away." He took another long sip. "Takashi-san's quite incensed that it happened without giving them a chance to peacefully surrender, but, hey, these things happen, right? I was surprised, of course, but mostly I'm just disappointed I won't get to be on TV again. But my son looks like he's about to have a coronary, and he wasn't even here."

He leaned back on his elbow and uncrossed his legs. "Oh, but you don't care about this old man's troubles. Your friends are back there," he gestured to the hallway behind him with his thumb. "Oh, and there's a bunch of TV and lighting equipment left in the guest room, don't mention it to Takashi-san or his head may explode, we'll clean it up later if the police don't want any of it."

∙

Makoto lay on the floor with her plaster-bound leg propped up on a pillow, staring up at the ceiling, wincing as if waiting to be struck. Hotaru was on her knees next to the pillow, one eye closed, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, occasionally blowing her hair out of her eyes. One hand was holding Makoto's cast steady and the other was holding the Silence Glaive, fingers grabbing the flat edge of the blade about halfway up, slowly and carefully using the tip to slice through the plaster.

Makoto inhaled sharply. "Ouch! Easy, easy, you just poked me in the leg there." She paused and rolled her eyes upward in thought. "Yeah, that's bleeding."

"Sorry! I'm sorry!" Hotaru blew the hair out of her face again. "I told you, I said I couldn't do this, I'm not -- I know what happens when I push too hard on this!"

"No, Hotaru, no, you're fine." Makoto sat up slightly so she could look Hotaru in the eyes. "It's just a poke, we can get a bandage for that if it won't heal. You're doing fine, just keep going. I am not going to find that special saw and I can't transform without standing on it, this is much better than either of those."

Hotaru didn't know why Makoto wanted the cast on her broken leg removed, but she wasn't going to try and convince her it would be a bad idea; it wouldn't work. She just sliced the cast away in silence, she made the first cut all the way down Makoto's leg and was about halfway down with the second, higher cut when she heard footsteps. She lifted her hands off the blade, letting it sit in the cast for a couple seconds before vanishing, and grabbed for the Sharpie that had rolled to Makoto's other ankle. Their cover story would be that Hotaru -- or, Makoto's good friend Minaguchi Yuko -- was just leaning over to sign her cast and most certainly was not using an enchanted, world-destroying scythe as a cast remover. Once the Glaive was gone and the marker was in her hand, Hotaru turned to see who was coming; her eyes went wide and she ran for the doorway.

Usagi, Rei, and Chibi-Usa all reacted at the same time and with the same sentiment. "Hotaru?"

"Chibi-Usa!" Hotaru shouted in joy, right before she collided with her at full speed. They spilled into the hallway but didn't fall over; their heads were on each other's shoulders, arms wrapped around each other in a joyous, relieved embrace. Tears fell from both their faces.

"Hotaru, you're okay! We were all so worried, there's been more daimons, there were strange people and we didn't know where you were, if you were safe... It's so good to see you're all right, Hotaru." Chibi-Usa tried to let go and pull away so she could look her friend in the eye, but she couldn't, Hotaru wouldn't let go. She was holding onto the little pink-haired girl as if she was the only life preserver in an infinite ink-dark sea, and to loose her grip would mean certain annihilation. The points of the ornament on Hotaru's chest dug into Chibi-Usa's skin, Hotaru's breath came in sobs and shudders. "Hotaru... Hotaru, you're hurting me!" she cried in panic.

"I know I do," Hotaru choked, winced her eyes shut. "I know I do."

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

XENOFORM: YOUMA (Part 1 of 2: Description & Theory)

So apparently, people all over town have been getting attacked by

some kind of monster roaming the streets at night, that's sucking

some kind of energy out of 'em and then sprints off into the night

to escape. And I'm thinking, some kind of vampire, right? Wrong. I

run into this thing and it's like a woman, only she's got pink

skin, freaky hair, and -- I shit you not -- an enormous shoe

sticking out of her chest. Like she's some walking Reebok ad. So

she comes at me, right, and I put a few bullets into her, but none

of them really break the skin. And she does this horrible B-movie

laugh and says "Your weapons are useless against me!" And only

thing I could think of was "And you're a giant shoe, so I guess

that makes us even!"

More accurately described as a method of creating demons than as an actual species of demons in and of themselves, youma are manufactured foot soldiers of a more powerful necromancer or diabolist. Once thought to be exclusive to Tokyo, recent sightings as well as a more careful examination of records has shown these creatures to have been found in London, New York, Los Angeles, Johannesburg, Damascus, New Delhi, and Pripyat. Though youma are demons, their closest relatives are not the Bering demons or Luciferans encountered by other Hoffmann teams -- the "standard" youma is closest to a homunculus, while a Series IX youma is more akin to a golem. But whereas a homunculus or golem is assembled of existing Earthly components to grant it a physical body that magic then grants the spark of life, a youma's body is magically assembled ex nihilo moments after being granted life, using the psychic impressions of an Earthly object as a rough guideline.

Though they come in multiple distinct subtypes, and within subtypes no two youma are identical, all youma share certain characteristics: all youma are created by fusing a specially-crafted magical essence, the "core", with an ordinary person or object, or the "template." Once fused, the youma creates a humanoid body for itself using magically-powered "virtual matter," and this body takes on exaggerated characteristics of the template it was created from, or of thoughts, emotions and perceptions associated with the template. A man known for his skill in one specific area will probably become a youma "themed" around that particular skill, regardless of his other qualities. Objects that have been much-loved or the focus of a great deal of thought and ideation are likely to become youma with more qualities based on how the item is seen rather than how it is used. Different youma visually express the concepts that comprise them in different ways, but a general poll of those who have contacted them has created this rough guideline: A youma looks as if it's wearing a gaudy costume to represent the thing or idea that most influences its existence in a high-concept off-off-Broadway play.

The relativistic magical-energy-to-matter conversion to create and sustain a youma requires large amounts of power to maintain, and as such youma have only been known to exist in areas with dark matter gateways of sufficient size to sustain the conversion, or in close proximity to a dark matter fusion reactor such as would be found on an advanced starship. Youma capable of teleportation, or who are transported by similar means, can jump from one sustainable dark-matter area to another. Normal youma may be created of magical material that seems to defy the laws of biology, but are indeed biological in nature: they breathe oxygen, eat (though most youma don't exist long enough to need to), bleed when cut, et cetera, though their brain-matter functions abnormally, as detailed below. Series IX youma, so far only seen in Tokyo in 1995 (sightings in Damascus in 1974 are unconfirmed), have the same composition as normal youma but almost all organic components are nonfunctional. Like a golem, the magics that give them life directly animate their bodies, rather than the magic creating muscle tissue that then contracts and relaxes to move their bodies. These youma have only one vital organ, the head, and are "killed" after losing a certain amount of structural integrity, regardless of its location.

The magics creating and maintaining the youma's structure also attempt to keep its cohesion, resisting attempts to pierce or slash. Youma have Good toughness against Low Impact and High Impact damage, but Ordinary toughness against Energy damage. Low Impact or High Impact damage that is magical in nature -- magically-conjured needles of ice, for example -- bypasses this protection as well and treats the youma as Ordinary toughness. Magical attack is obviously the most effective means of dispatching a youma, but most Hoffmann agents are without access to magic. Explosives and incendiaries -- grenades, dynamite, dousing the youma in gasoline and throwing a lighter at it -- are most effective after magic; if none of those can be acquired, sources of LI or HI damage of Good or better intensity can be scrounged from everyday items. Power tools such as circular saws, power drills, riding lawnmowers, and wood chippers rend flesh with enough force to overcome the youma's defenses, as do speeding cars, subway trains, and jet turbines (all three of which were demonstrated in an incident at Los Angeles International Airport in 1998). Youma are incredibly dangerous and hard to kill when magic is unavailable -- as it usually is -- and often require Herculean effort to destroy; if magic is usable, they become trivially easy to dispatch.

The youma's most powerful defensive measure, however, is entirely accidental: an unconscious, passive protection against discovery and reprisal by humankind. The material that youma are composed of is otherworldly and thus obeys slightly different physical laws; while it is more resistant to damage, stronger, more flexible, etc., the organic conductivity and intricacy required to make a functioning brain is impossible over such a small area. A youma brain built to function like a human brain results in a youma experiencing a constant grand mal seizure as every area of brain activity interferes with every other. The organic brain matter of a youma is merely the receiver for a massive construct that serves as their actual mind; a gigantic invisible, intangible sphere, almost entirely out of phase with reality, made of the magical equivalent of vacuum tubes spaced wide enough to avoid cross-interference. The gigantic size of their "brain" does not make them more intelligent; most youma are far less intelligent than an average human. However, their massive "brain" means that others can walk into the physical area of their thought and perceive it subconsciously.

In a phenomenon termed the "Taioron Reaction" by a Tokyo-based research team (Arimura, Hanyuu, Teruno, Bidou et al, "Cognitive-Psionic Reactions to Extraplanar Stimuli: A Comprehensive Approach", New England Journal of Medicine [suppressed, May 1989), the human subconscious interprets the presence of the youma's thought processes in the same physical space as its own as an attempt at psionic domination and provokes a natural defense mechanism: the subconscious locks out all interference from the youma's mind by locking out all evidence of its existence from the conscious mind, provoking the person to flee outside the youma's cognitive range, and prevents the individual from returning by preventing him from recognizing he's capable of going back to that area. Unfortunately, like most deep-seated reactions in the human body or mind, this doesn't do anything productive; the youma's thoughts cannot control anyone else's and the Taioron Reaction never helps against actual mind control attempts. In fact it inhibits a person from doing what would actually be useful in the situation; that is, fight off the youma or find someone who can.

The Taioron Reaction, however, does not apply to everyone, and though its effects are drastic its power is weak. The reaction can be resisted without active effort or exertion; this does not require a feat check or a certain WIL score as it is more a question of mindset than mental ability. The conscious mind is told by the subconscious "That thing is bad, you should ignore it and it will go away." A person who would want to agree with such a proposal when spoken aloud is running away, affected by the Taioron Reaction. A person who would react with "What? No, that's stupid." is totally unaffected -- but often they run away anyway, youma can mess you up. This is unapologetically a mechanic allowing for bigger, more bombastic evil schemes while allowing secrecy to remain a plot point and for clearing out combat areas in urban environments. A rule of thumb for adjudicating the effect is thus: Player characters are never affected, and named NPCs would only be affected if, assuming they were player characters, they would not ask you if they got to make a WIL check to avoid the effect. Cultural and local factors affect the prevalence of the Taioron Reaction in ways that can't be precisely described mechanically: youma in Tokyo's Juuban ward, for example, are seldom remembered by anyone save the people who are specifically trying to destroy them; a low-level youma in New York City was actually beaten to death with iron pipes and sawed-off pool cues over the course of a half-hour by a gang of toughs who recognized that a big purple monster was something that had no business in the world; the cops didn't arrest anyone for the assault because they couldn't recall seeing it.

Normal youma suffer damage like any other living thing, save that they receive an additional +1 penalty to all actions rather than becoming unconscious once their Stun damage track is filled. But they accrue +1 step action penalties for losing half of their Stun or half of their Wound durability, lose consciousness when they lose all of their Wound durability, suffer Fatigue damage from extended activity and so on. Series IX youma don't need their organic components save as a structural base and are more durable; they do not lose consciousness when their Stun or Wound damage tracks are filled, do not receive action penalties for having Stun or Wound damage (though they receive penalties for Mortal damage as huge chunks of them are missing, interfering with their function), and do not have a Fatigue damage track. Both types are killed when they lose all Mortal durability, and upon death revert to the template object they were made from. Youma made from objects return to the form of that object, usually in the condition it was in when it was made into a youma; it's hard to translate damage from a humanoid form onto a pair of electric hedge clippers.

However, if the template was a living human, he returns to being in a condition that's suffered most or all of the things inflicted on the youma made from it. Youma do not age, but the human template suffers the ravages of having lived the entire time he was a youma; this is not an issue with most human-template youma as they are found and neutralized within weeks of creation, but human-template youma that have lived longer than a human lifespan often revert to a pile of grave dust when slain. More important than age, a human that served as a youma template inherits almost all damage inflicted on the youma. Roll d4 for the youma's Stun, Wound and Mortal durability and subtract that much damage, then apply all of the youma's remaining damage to the human template, including any damage in excess of maximum durability the final shot inflicted. This can result in instant death if a human-template youma is killed with more than the bare minimum of damage required, or if the youma has more Durability than the human and damage spills over. Human-form youma are generally not to be killed, simply restrained until an FX skill such as Monotheism -- Exorcism can be applied.

The ability to make a demonic minion out of anything is powerful, but it's important to note that a youma takes its form and powers from what people think about the item and not the item itself. Youma are sometimes made using custom-crafted objects specifically made for the purpose, but there are usually less powerful than youma made from everyday objects. A statue of a robot specifically made to make a mechanized youma killing machine will result in an anemic, powerless youma if the model wasn't important to anyone; a youma made out of a lucky rabbit's foot could be a cute (and weak) bunny, but if it belonged to a heavyweight boxer who kisses it before every bout, in order to have the strength to win, might or might not look like a cute bunny but it's damn certain to "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

Below is a list of the villains Sailor Moon has encountered, along with what their youma were crafted of as well as additional expository information where applicable:

Season 1's antagonists, the Dark Kingdom, just called their youma "youma". They were all made from humans, though some were made from humans in contemporary Tokyo and some were made from loyal servants of Queen Beryl during the time of the Silver Millennium. What was initially believed to be "moondust" left behind by their destruction was desiccated, powdered human remains.

Season 2, Part 1's antagonists, Ail and Ann, used a brand of youma called "cardians". Cardians were all made from objects, specifically a special set of tarot cards printed for the explicit purpose of being made into youma. Cardians are referred to as a "brand" because, since Ail himself did not have the power necessary to create youma, it is assumed that he purchased the deck of cardians from a third party merchant who had pre-treated them for easy youma creation.

Season 2, Part 2's antagonists, the Black Moon Clan, used "droids". Droids were made from objects manufactured specifically for the purpose of making youma. Instead of reverting to their template object when killed, they turned to dust, this was a special measure implemented by the Black Moon Clan to hinder efforts to trace the youma back to their point of origin that was entirely superfluous once they moved their war effort to the 20th century.

Season 3's antagonists, the Death Busters and Master Pharaoh 90, used "daimons". Daimons were made from inanimate objects, usually things close to the intended target of their current evil plan, but sometimes chose items for the specific qualities of the item rather than the owner. The daimon creation process was refined according to scientific processes multiple times, and though a solution to the Taioron Reaction was discovered, it was never implemented as the Reaction was productive to their ends.

The giant-size daimons released directly by the Pharaoh 90 were Series IX youma.

Season 4's antagonists, the Dead Moon Circus, used "lemures", singular and plural. Lemures were said to be made from "the dead", but there is some disagreement as to what that means. Either the lemures were made from the corpses of the recently deceased, taking on qualities of what the deceased was remembered for, or they were created directly from the souls of the dead and embody what kept them in this world. Supporters of the latter hypothesis point to the "beautiful nightmare netherworld" nature of the Dead Moon Circus and the fact that they leave no physical residue when killed; supporters of the former hypothesis say it's hard to stick a youma to something intangible and not that many ghosts are bound to this world by juggling.

Season 5's antagonist, Sailor Galaxia, was served by the "Verger Senshi". These are not youma and, aside from being FX Adepts, are completely normal members of their species.

The "Flower Youma" of the R movie were, obviously, made from flowers, though it's unknown if their leader/mastermind the Xenian Flower was itself a youma, or a mindwalking plant who could create youma. Princess Kaguya's "Snow Dancers" were made from ice and/or snow. Howard LeClanche did not use youma. 


	8. Double Whammy

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

Meioh Setsuna sat cross-legged on the floor of the stone cavern, drumming her fingers on her knee, grinding her teeth, staring into a mostly-black monitor. The Death Busters had done all their computing on a liquid nitrogen-cooled Cray YMP; transdimensional physics has an astonishing number of variables and even with the most optimized code possible a personal computer will chug and labor to carry out the most comparatively simple operation, and crash often. The monitor displayed "CALIBRATING..." above a progress bar that was 93 complete. Reflected in the monitor's glass, Setsuna would have seen a black-scaled kinori, waiting patiently to be acknowledged, then seen her own face. She would have, if she was currently in control of her eyes, and her own face wasn't shrouded in unnatural darkness.

"You've encountered Sailor Moon and her retinue, I take it?" Setsuna didn't turn around, watching the progress bar creep upward.

The blackscale shifted his feet, wouldn't look directly at her. "Yes, Gate-Keeper." His Japanese was harsh and barking even when he was showing deference, his mouth simply couldn't make the full range of sounds needed to express the idea.

"And since you didn't come in here holding a severed human head, I gather the assassination attempt was unsuccessful." She turned back to face him, expression unreadable and nonvisible. "Did you encounter Moon, Saturn, both?"

"One with the head-fibers you described for Moon. None with the blade weapon. There were six others... four sorcerors, two others. May have been human law enforcement, had guns." He took a half-step back to make sure he was out of striking range. "We suffered two fatalities, one missing in action. Only wounded one, think fatally. Kill not confirmed." He winced.

She nodded slowly and rose to her feet. Her pants were caked in mud, her arms and the backs of her hands were red and raw. "I am disappointed in this, Kher-Aya. Were you followed?"

"No, Gate-Keeper. The daimon and my team became separated but we met up at an ambush point and waited until we were certain we were not being pursued."

"But one is missing in action, and he may have been taken by law enforcement." She tilted her head and the tip of Kher-Aya's tail started to twitch. "None of the other kinori we sent to the surface speak Japanese, and the Sailor Senshi would not interrogate him anyway. The government, however, will want to extract information from him. It is not implausible that they could find a telepath to assist them in this end."

She gestured her arms around the cavern and bid Kher-Aya to look. The cave roof was high, riddled with stalactites, the walls were slick with condensation. Clusters of eggs were bunched around blunt stalagmites, heated and illuminated by a scavenged array of headlights, heat lamps, and fluorescents; the thin strands of wire coming from them mixed with the fat black bundles of cable coming from the matte grey pieces of high-tech machinery -- resonator pylons, entropic anchors, gravitic pulsers, a PowerMac 8115 -- to form a confusing electrical spiderweb. White-scaled kinori walked to and fro, hesitantly working on the machines, checking and tending to the eggs, looking down as they walked so they wouldn't trip over a power cable. Two bundles of cable led into a hole on the wall next to Setsuna, a meter wide and a meter and a half up the wall, the point where the Gate's sub-dimensional space intersected an open part of the cavern; inside was a vast, empty plain and a doorway to nowhere.

"This is a lot of effort, Kher-Aya. This is your home. And if that soldier is interrogated before the Master can arrive then it's all going to be destroyed. I don't need to tell you how bad it is that you let someone be captured."

"Were, were... complications!" said Kher-Aya, waving his taloned hands in front of him. "Were almost immune to sorcerors' magic, but one was cryokinetic, other two had guns, no resistance to them, gun weapon not effective against Moon-sorceror, daimon uncooperative! Please forgive me! Give another chance!"

She tilted her head and her red smile widened. "You think I'm about to kill you for failing?" She laughed, and even the creature who has little experience with human speech is chilled by it. "No, no, Sailor Moon is obviously very hard to kill. Were the Master to kill every one of his servants each time they failed, I'd soon have nothing left. And if you were constantly afraid I'd kill you for failure, you'd take unsafe risks that would cause even more damage. Soldiers are valuable and scarce, I won't deprive myself of that resource because they had a difficult mission. That is incredibly inefficient."

Kher-Aya clucked his species' version of a sigh of relief.

"But the Master will need you to find and either reclaim or kill your lost soldier before he can reveal our position to the surface-dwellers. Take all the members of your team fit to fight, recall another one of the ambush teams from the surface if need be, and track him down." Behind her, the computer made a 'ping!' noise, she turned and growled. "If this piece of machinery can't function like -- oh, that noise apparently means it's done." She crouched down and gingerly pressed the mouse button with her index finger without putting her hand on the mouse.

Immediately, the lights went dark, leaving only the battery-powered lanterns lighting the room. The air was filled with acrid smoke and ozone. "WHO WIRED THAT?" Setsuna screamed, and pointed at one of the pylons, wisps of smoke rose from it. "WHICH ONE OF YOU WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR HOOKING THAT MACHINE INTO THE GRID?"

One of the kinori nervously stepped forward "Gate-Keeper, so apologize, was mistake! Can't happen again!"

"You're right, it can't happen again, because you fried the machine!" Her hands balled into fists. "I told you! The red and black leads are hot, the green lead is ground! Mix them up, and that's what happens! How HARD is that for you to remember?" The kinori stammered a defense, but wasn't thinking clearly enough to speak Japanese. Setsuna looked back at Kher-Aya and reached her arms behind her toward him. "Hold me down for thirty seconds and don't let me go before then," she sighed. "I'm about to have one of my seizures."

Kher-Aya was confused, but nodded, and grabbed her arms and held them. Her body twitched and she craned her neck around to look at him, now her face was lit in the same light as everyone else's. Her eyes were rimmed by deep, dark circles, and her lips cracked and broken; Kher-Aya has seen enough television broadcasts from the surface world to know what they meant. "Let me go. Now." she said, cold and even.

"You just said not to. I won't." Across the cavern, the kinori who admitted to the bad wiring job jerked oddly, his face suddenly cast in shadow.

"You don't know what you're doing. He doesn't want to kill humankind. He wants to kill everyone. You included."

"Said you had seizures. Thought that meant you twitched."

"I didn't tell you anything." Setsuna crouched and sprang upward, kicked the kinori in the stomach. He yelped and released his grip, Setsuna stepped forward out of his reach. She dug into her pocket, paused, and kicked Kher-Aya again, sending him across the floor. She pulled out her transformation pen and shouted "PlutoplanetpowerMAKEUP!" as fast as she possibly could. By the time Kher-Aya got back to his feet to charge Sailor Pluto and hold her down, she was able to crack him across the nose with the Garnet Staff.

Kher-Aya rubbed his face with the base of his scaly hand. "Testing me, somehow?" He rose to his feet. "Show of dominance?"

None of the other kinori were helping him in the fight, because the few who wouldn't be too scared to attack the Gate-Keeper weren't even aware there was a fight. They were all transfixed on the horrid sight of the shadow-faced kinori who had found a knife and was now slowly, methodically slicing open the major arteries in his arms and legs. He didn't seem to react to the pain at all until he made the fourth incision, then the shadow passed from him and he began shrieking in agony, limbs flailing in every direction, spraying blood on everything.

"There's no time, damn it!" Pluto barked. "He's a monster, and if you don't let me pass he'll enslave or murder your entire species!" They looked at each other for a moment, though the kinori's eyes were set too wide for them to make eye contact. Then Pluto broke left, running for a cave she hoped was the exit, and Kher-Aya leapt at her, headbutting her in the chest with his bony crest. She fell backwards but brought up the staff to block the counter-attack. As the blackscale reeled, she struck him two more times from the sides, then delivered a thrust to the head that caught him in the open mouth, pinning him to the ground with the staff pressing on the back of his throat.

He gagged and swatted at the staff but couldn't knock it loose. Just when he thought the Gate-Keeper was going to kill him for failure after all, the staff was lifted; when he sat up to look at her her face was once again shrouded.

"Repulsive." she said, looking at her hand even though it hadn't touched anything unusual. "I'm going to have to bathe again just to be able to withstand the concept." She turned her hand over, observing the skin turned red and raw by repeated scrubbing. Across the cavern, the electrician-kinori moaned, gagged, and died, the sound amplified by the concave walls.

Kher-Aya looked over at his dying nest-mate, then back up at Pluto. "I said that soldiers were a scarce resource, Kher-Aya," she said, rubbing the back of her right hand with the base of her left as if she was trying to rub off a persistent stain. "Labor is not. You've no need to worry about that befalling you, so put it out of your mind. Just, assemble your team, and recapture that hostage."

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 8: DOUBLE WHAMMY ∙ ∙ ∙

HIKAWA SHRINE TOKYO, JAPAN MONDAY FEBRUARY 21, 1995 3:09 PM

Hotaru held on to Chibi-Usa for a few more seconds, sobbing. Usagi hesitated, unsure of what she should do, then tried to slip her hand in between the two girls. "Hotaru-chan, please, we've missed you too, give everyone a chance to..." As soon as she felt Usagi push, Hotaru let go and stepped back, shuddering. Usagi kneeled down and extended her arms, pulled Hotaru into a hug; she returned the embrace only tentatively. "We were so afraid we'd lost you, we were afraid you were hurt, or you'd been taken, but we didn't know where you were, we didn't think there was anything we could do..."

"You shouldn't have worried about me." Usagi stepped forward to let everyone else filter into the room, Rei leaned in to give Hotaru a hug, saw the girl's expression, and thought better of it. "I was fine, really."

"Really?" asked Minako. "That man, uh, Bill, he said you fought a monster and got shot."

"Yeah..." Her eyes stayed off to the side, unable to meet anyone else's. "...but it wasn't anything important. I mean, you could have done the same thing. You've killed all the other daimons, I didn't do anything you couldn't. And you wouldn't have even got shot in the first place, and it wasn't that bad, so..." She sighed. "It's not anything really worth mentioning."

"Of course it..." Chibi-Usa paused while Rei slid the door closed behind them, then lowered her voice. "Of course it's worth mentioning! You were fighting evil, saving the city! And there were so many of them yesterday, we were all stretched so thin, it took all the Senshi to win. If you weren't there, we couldn't have dealt with all of them, so of course we needed you!" She put her hands on Hotaru's shoulders. "You're a Sailor Senshi. And you're my friend. And either way, it means that what you do is important."

"I couldn't pull my weight anyway." Her voice was flat, lifeless. "I had to have two more people helping me just to do my share. I'm not a good Senshi... not in any sense."

"Two more... were they named Bill and Donna?" asked Ami.

Hotaru nodded. "They were the ones who found me after... after I failed before. And two more, and their boss came later. They're with something called the Hoffmann Institute. They wanted to stop the Pharaoh, but they didn't know how, or what they were doing. I don't think they knew, or believed, or cared that you were going to do it. They thought they needed to keep me with them and needed to keep me safe. Now I think they've all been arrested, if what Makoto-san said was what I thought it was. So it turns out they were wrong about an awful lot of things." Like who they wanted on their team. And if there was ever a kingdom on Saturn. Maybe.

"Don't worry, Hotaru-chan," said Usagi. "We'll find your new friends and we'll make sure they're okay, too."

"...I didn't say they were my friends."

"Oh..." Usagi's hand went to her mouth. "Did they hurt you?"

"No, no, they didn't hurt me. They were kind enough, loud, outspoken, tried to act like I was their friend already, like I guess Americans are supposed to act like -- they didn't really know what being my friend would mean. But I only saw them for a day, and they thought a lot of things about me that weren't true. They didn't know me, I didn't know them... I wouldn't call them friends."

"But if they helped you," asked Chibi-Usa, "and they were kind, wanted you to be their friend, and they tried to keep you safe, why shouldn't you call them friends? That's what friends do, isn't it?"

Hotaru looked into Chibi-Usa's gentle red eyes for a few moments, than looked away. "It's not the same thing."

There was an awkward silence that seemed to stretch on for an hour but was really more like five seconds. "So, uh, Mako-chan," Minako said, just to get conversation going again, "Why didn't you tell us that Hotaru was here?"

"When I called you, I didn't know!" Makoto propped herself up on her elbows. "I just heard something about the cops being here, and the TV people getting arrested and leaving some suspicious stuff behind. I thought that was reason enough for me to call you and tell you to come back." She nodded at Hotaru. "She came in later, after the police had left. She was helping me get this cast off before you guys came back." She tried to look at Hotaru, but the girl wouldn't meet her gaze. "Hotaru-chan, why didn't you mention any of this to me?"

"If I did, you'd have worried about me." She chewed her lower lip. "I don't want you to do that."

"Hotaru-chan... we worry, because we care about you. We don't want anything bad to happen to you."

"I know." She put her hand on her forehead. "I... wish you wouldn't." She let her arms drop to her sides and sighed. "I should finish doing what Makoto-san asked me to do."

"Thank you, Hotaru-chan," said Makoto. Hotaru moved her hand as if she was trying to catch a fly and by the end of the motion caught the Glaive instead. "I'm so glad you could help me, because if you weren't here, I'd have had to stand on a broken leg again and I don't know if I could do that.

Hotaru didn't know why she'd have to do that, but it didn't matter. She leaned in, grabbed the blade steady, and continued making the cut.

"We're going to have to be careful," Mamoru said. Hotaru wasn't really paying attention, concentrating too hard on not nicking Makoto's leg again. "We've had a lot more physical injury in the past couple days than usual, today I had to mend a few broken bones of my own, sealed, uh, Bill-san's axe wound, put odango's tooth back in, fix your leg... I can't keep doing it forever, I don't want my power to run dry when someone takes a claw to the femoral artery."

"Hotaru could do it though, right?" Chibi-Usa added. "You could help to fix Mako-chan's leg."

"Huh?" She let the Glaive vanish again, she was done with the incision. "Is that what you needed this for, Makoto-san?"

"Well, yeah." Makoto blinked. "Mamoru has to touch the injured area to heal it up, and I couldn't get the cast off so he could get at it unless I had a little rotary saw, or I transformed and stood on it again. I didn't know if you could do that too, or I would have asked."

"But... it's gross." Hotaru looked around. "I mean, I have to touch it, and poke at it with my hands, and there might be blood, so nobody wants it to..."

Chibi-Usa held Hotaru's hand between both of her own. "Hotaru-chan... it's like I said before. You have a gift that can help a lot of people. There's nothing sick or wrong about it. And nobody should ever be unhappy because you've touched them. You've touched all of us, and we're all happy you did."

"And even if it WAS gross," added Makoto, "I'd be willing to eat a live cockroach if it meant I could turn back into Sailor Jupiter without collapsing in pain." Chibi-Usa shot her a chastising look. "Well, I would!"

Hotaru leaned in again and gingerly started removing the strip of plaster between the two cuts. "So, Hotaru," Rei asked as she worked, "The 'Hoffmann Institute', the ones who said they were the FBI, what were they doing here? Did you tell them to come to the shrine to meet us?"

"No... I didn't know we were coming until I woke up here. I was passed out." She looked in at the exposed area of Makoto's leg, wondered why it wasn't pale and clammy until she realized the cast had only been on for a couple days. "We took a bunch of stuff from... my old house, some machines and some notes, that they were going to look over to see how they could stop the Pharaoh. They didn't believe me when I said I already knew how." She poked lightly at Makoto's leg, she gritted her teeth and hissed. "They came here because, I don't think they could get a hotel room. One of them had done some kind of TV show here, I think, and their boss called ahead to say they were coming back so they had an excuse to stay the night." She looked over at Makoto. "I'm going to have to press on it kind of hard to touch it, okay?"

Makoto nodded. "Just do it quick." Hotaru pressed in on Makoto's leg, her fingertips glowing as she dragged them up the area, flaring a brighter white when she passed over the actual fracture. Makoto bit on her knuckle to control the pain, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been at the hospital, and soon it was over. She sat up, poked her leg, and felt only a dull ache. Hotaru stood up, almost fell when she tried to put weight on her left leg, but found her footing.

"So the equipment you had, that's the lighting equipment Grandfather mentioned that they left here?"

"No. Well, some of it. But they also brought my lamp collection... most of it."

Ami nodded, hand on chin. "If we have notes and equipment from the Death Busters, we could probably be able to analyze it, find out more about the Pharaoh. We'd know what he was doing and how to stop it."

Everyone in the room looked at her funny. "Okay... and by 'we could analyze it', I mean 'I could analyze it.'"

∙ ∙ ∙

"No point in sugar-coating it." The detective leaned over the table, resting on his knuckles, the bare light bulb hanging above his head casting odd shadows over his face. His grey suitcoat was hung over the back of a chair, his tie was loosened and his shirt untucked, forming an image he had carefully crafted. He stared at the suspect for a few seconds and nodded ruefully at the stack of papers on the table between them. "You don't have to be able to read that to know that you're in a lot of water."

Bill sat with his arms crossed over his chest, staring straight ahead. He looked pale and slightly woozy, and he was still wearing his blood-soaked pants. "William. Scott. Wheeler," he said as if reading from a notecard.

The detective pulled the chair up to the table and sat on it backwards so he could appear more casual and thus more approachable and trustworthy. "They got you dead to rights," he said, pointed at the stack of paperwork again. "If you won't cooperate with us, then the system won't cooperate with you. You don't want that. I don't want it either."

Bill stared right through the detective. "Private, first class."

"I sympathise with you, I really do. You're lost in a foreign country, you don't speak the language, can't read the signs, don't understand the culture. You're scared and alone and you don't know what's going on. I know it wasn't your idea to come here." He extended his opened palm, a gesture of clemency. "And we recognize that. It's not your fault if you were just following someone else's orders."

"Serial number: Ess-dash-zero-zero-one-four-four..." Bill looked up and to the left as he tried to recall the last two digits, then resumed giving the thousand-yard stare. "...Zero-five."

The detective slicked back his hair. "I don't know what you've heard, but the Tokyo police don't want to spend time prosecuting people like you. Good people, who were doing their jobs, that happened to be on the wrong side of a regulation. If you'll just sign a confession, tell us what you did and who you did it for, you can be out of here and on a plane back to the US within a week." He sighed so it would look like the next thing he said was weighing heavy on his heart. "But if you won't cooperate, the district attorneys will think that you were the mastermind. They won't listen to guys like me, they'll want their pound of skin from someone. If they can't get at anyone higher than you, they'll send you to prison for a long time... maybe even give you the death penalty."

Bill's back itched, but he felt like if he moved to scratch it he'd look like he was being affected by the cop's string of lies. "No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way..."

"Don't you get it, man?" the detective said as if he was really making a heartfelt plea for sanity. "You're preaching to the band! I'm on your side, man, I don't want to see you go to prison. But you've gotta know how the system works, you need to work the system!"

Bill continued, heedless. "...Nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land."

"Damn it!" The detective pounded his fist on the table so as to look like the suspect could have him as either an ally or an enemy. "This isn't America, you don't..." He put his hand on his chin. "Wait, that's not the US Constitution, is it?"

"To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice..."

"What is that... you're quoting the Magna Carta, aren't you?" He blinked, and the confusion he showed was totally genuine. "Why are you quoting the Magna Carta?"

Bill shifted almost imperceptibly in his seat, dragged that itchy spot on his back across the edge of the seatback. At this point in an American interrogation, he'd be rattling off the US Constitution; back in his militia days everyone in the New Patriot Church of Liberty had it memorized and most of them did so for just such an occasion. He'd thought it out a bit further and memorized a few choice passages of a more fundamental document in case he found himself in an area the Constitution didn't apply; he actually felt a little bit happy he got to show off his foresight. The other agents probably wished they were him right now.

∙ ∙ ∙

"Okay, Ami, what do we have?"

"Trouble."

Makoto blinked and put her hands on her hips. They were in the guest room, and Makoto and Rei were picking through the scavenged equipment, mostly so they could feel like they were doing something -- they couldn't make heads or tails of any of the strange high-tech devices. Ami scrutinized a few stacks of papers arrayed out in front of her, and Hotaru, Minako, and Chibi-Usa looked on at her waiting for the prognosis. Mamoru had left to wash the blood off his arms, and Usagi had gone with him, feeling like she could be more productive there. Luna tried to pore over the research notes, but found most of it way over her head; Artemis was asleep in the corner.

"We had trouble before, Ami-chan," said Minako. "We were kind of hoping you could give us some specifics. Can we stop the Pharaoh from returning?"

"Well, I don't know. Maybe." Ami waved her hand over a section of papers. "Most of these are from 1989 or earlier, I gather they switched over to computerized record keeping after that. This was when they didn't know a whole lot about the Pharaoh or how to summon him, and the data I can get from it isn't definite."

"That isn't all of it, though, right?" asked Luna. "There's material that's more useful to you in there as well, isn't there?"

"Well, I've only glanced at them so far, but it looks to taper off around March 1990. Then there's a bunch more records from 1993, but most of it appears to be procedural stuff, records kept to make sure they were maintaining experiments correctly, not the methods or purposes of the experiments. And the records taper off steadily from there as well, almost from where they began."

Hotaru nodded. "Dad's computer crashed on him around then, I remember him complaining about Windows and how it ate all of his data. I think he told Kaori she was supposed to keep paper copies of her lab notes so they wouldn't be lost. I guess they both got sick of it." It took a couple seconds for Hotaru to realize that not only was she speaking with familiarity about the inner workings of the Death Busters, but that both of the people she was talking about were dead by her hand. She teetered wordlessly and would have fallen if Chibi-Usa wasn't here to hold her up and give her a smile.

"That'd explain it," Ami nodded. "So it doesn't look like I'd have what I'd like, but I may be able to find the information we need, and there's something here in English that doesn't look like anyone else's handwriting about making a magnetic resonance disruptor that could be useful. No, I think the trouble comes from this. Take a look -- you shouldn't need to know the technical stuff." She pulled out a battered piece of yellow legal paper, the blue ink fading and smudged over the years. She started to hand it to Minako, looked at Luna, and laid it out on the floor so both of them could see, and Rei and Makoto leaned in to give it a look as well.

"Ahem. 'Power Options for MP-90 Project,' dated September 18, 1989," read Luna. "'Tokyo Power Grid, Pro: Covert, low initial equipment cost, legal,' question mark? 'Con: Easily Disrupted if Discovered, prohibitive over-time expense, long time to gather power plus poor storage.'"

"'Nuclear Fusion,'" Rei continued. "'Pro: Self-contained, hard to cut off if discovered,' ampersand, 'high power output. Con: Uranium hard to gather, gain attention, no means of waste disposal.'"

"'Dilithium Crystals!'" Minako said as if this was the part that caught her interest. "'Pro, magic space do-anything tech. Con: Do not exist,' comma, 'Mimette is stupid.' Looks like me and the Death Busters agree on one thing."

"'Psychic Crystallization', and this one is circled in red ink," said Makoto. "'Pro: No energy lost to conversion powering M-9, greatly increase energy output, Talismans could have additional application, easy storage and acquisition. Con: Energy difficult to combine; energy output decreases' log, loga... 'logarithmically with each introduced impurity; quality and purity of hearts difficult to control. Only need 3 hearts,' question mark? And then at the bottom there's a drawing of UFOs fighting Godzilla, and a potted plant with teeth saying 'Feed me, Tellu!' What does it mean?"

"It's from 'Little Shop of Horrors,'" said Hotaru. Everyone in the room turned to look at her and she felt that horrid feeling of free-fall again. "It, uh, it was Tellu-san's favorite play." Chibi-Usa patted her on the shoulder.

"The point is, at the end she's talking about Pure Heart Crystals," said Ami. "But it's not the only thing on the list. They could have tried to summon Pharaoh 90 using a nuclear reactor, but they thought that Pure Hearts would work better. They could have got energy from other sources."

"Ohhh..." Luna would have slapped her forehead if she had an arm capable of doing so. "And if he needs pure heart crystals to complete the summoning, you can find the daimons and stop them before they get the Crystal or get back with it. But, if he can get an alternate power source, it's probably not something nearly as vulnerable to your disrupting it."

"And yesterday," Ami continued, "he sent out as many high-endurance daimons as possible at the same time to gather heart crystals, apparently going for quantity over quality even though that's less efficient, hoping we'd be overwhelmed. But we weren't, and we stopped all of them. So it would be the perfect time to change tactics to something we can't disrupt."

"Which is whyyy," Minako said, nodding her head as she caught up to speed with Ami and Luna, "this latest attack had a daimon that didn't fully form until we were there, and the lizards waiting to spring out -- it was an ambush! If he doesn't need crystals any more the only reason to send out daimons is to kill us, probably because he's worried we could find his power source. So, all we need to do is find where he's siphoning power from."

"No. We know where he's getting the power from." Rei's eyes were wide. "He has Sailor Pluto. And she's at the Gates of Time. And he's not going back in time, because we still exist."

"I think the Gates won't let him through," added Chibi-Usa. "Or, or if Puu-chan has some kind of evil Wicked Lady thing going, she doesn't count as Puu-chan and can't let people through."

"But he's still there. He's at the Gates of Time even if he can't go back through them. Ami, how much power would it take to travel through time?"

"A lot of power. And that's what he's going to use instead of Pure Heart Crystals. He's never going to have to leave the Gate!"

Minako clapped her hands and sat up, fully in 'commander' mode. "But we know he's got those kinori on his side, and we know he got one of those kinori to the Gates of Time without a key. Chibi-Usa-chan's key won't work without Pluto letting her in from the other side, but if we can find the kinori nest underground, either we'll have the way he got to the Gates or be a lot closer. Ami-chan, can your visor find the underground nest?"

She shook her head. "The dark matter is interfering too much. I could try sonar, but I'd still have to get in there and explore on foot."

"Knew it would be too easy." Minako chewed her lip. "Those people from the Hoffmann Institute looked like they knew about kinori -- knew they were called 'kinori' anyway. Hotaru, did they tell you anything?"

"They didn't really have a reason to. They did tell me some stuff about Bigfoot."

"All right. He's got an independent power supply so we're going to have to go offensive, and we don't know how much time he needs so we're going to have to work quick. Ami-chan, find out everything you can about the Pharaoh, who he is, where he's coming from, how he's coming and how to send him back."

Ami nodded. "Roger." She shuffled through the English-written papers. "I'm going to try and put together this resonance disruptor -- Rei-chan, do you have an old TV and a four-slice toaster you don't mind losing?"

"Ask Grandfather, he may have thrown his old TV out."

"The rest of us are splitting into two teams. When Usa-ko and Mamo-san get back I'll tell them they're finding the Hoffmann Institute people and finding out what they know -- that Disguise Pen should work for that. Mako-chan, Rei-chan? We're going caving, scoping out where the nest could be. Uranus and Neptune... will do whatever they want regardless of what I say."

Chibi-Usa hesitated to give Hotaru a chance to ask, then asked on her own. "What about us? What are we doing?"

Minako didn't have a task for them, but she couldn't really say so. One of them was useless in a fight and the other was unstable, and an unknown factor, and oh yeah nonzero chance she could end the world, and neither of those things were something she could accommodate. Luckily, Ami saved her bacon before she had to some up with something on her own. "You two can stay here with me. This will go a lot faster if I have more than one person, and... you know your way around some of this stuff, right, Hotaru-chan?"

Hotaru nodded glumly but didn't object. Usagi opened the door, a dumpling in her mouth and another in her hand. "So, what's going on?" She swallowed. "Rei-chan's grandfather was making these, they're real good -- you should try one. What'd I miss?"

"Finish that off, odango, we're mobilizing! Get Mamo-san and I'll explain."

∙ ∙ ∙

"Why do you even bother trying to reason with him?" the short, balding detective asked his taller, younger partner. He was trying to appear as intimidating and hostile as possible so his partner would seem that much more trustworthy by comparison. "It's obvious he doesn't have the slightest idea the trouble he's in. Don't waste your time sugar-coating things so he'll accept them, let's just throw the book at him and knock off early today."

"No, it's YOU who don't have the slightest idea of the trouble you're in," responded Dr. Philip Akens, frustration clearly evident in his voice. "By holding us here you're putting everyone in the city -- in the entire WORLD -- in grave danger! A psionic-demonic manifestation so massive they don't even have a classification for it is trying to rend its way into our reality right now, you've got to let us out before it's too late to stop it!"

Bad Cop scoffed. "Please. If you're trying to set up an insanity plea, you should know we don't even have those in Japan. Everything you say just deepens your guilt."

"No, no, wait," said Good Cop. "I think we should at least hear him out. Akens-san, why are we in danger if we don't release you?"

"Because this thing -- this Pharaoh 90, Isci ba Fan -- it wants to kill everyone on Earth, and it could if it got here." Phil hunched over and put his weight on his elbows, moving his hands to and fro to emphasize what he said. "Right now it's almost completely out of phase with reality, so it can't affect very much, but it's opening a gateway to let all of itself in. It tried to do that last Thursday at the Mugen Academy, but it got stopped at the last minute; the police didn't do anything about it. Now it's trying again -- and if you don't let us back out to find a more permanent solution it's going to succeed!"

Bad Cop rolled his eyes, Good Cop leaned in closer to hear what Phil was saying. "So, the Isci ba Fan was responsible for the detonation at the Mugen Academy? That makes a lot of sense." He nodded. "We thought that those people at Mugen were up to something sinister but never had enough evidence. But how do you know he came back and you need to stop him now? Maybe he just went away."

"No, no, no. He didn't go away." Phil shook his head and waved his arms. "He attacked the city en masse yesterday to gather up the power he needs." He looked back and forth between both cops, neither one of them showing the spark of recognition he wanted. "There were honest-to-God MONSTERS, man! Ten feet tall, brightly colored, sucking people's 'heart crystals' out! Don't tell me nobody... You don't... How the hell do you explain all the property damage?"

Good Cop nodded, finally recognizing. "Ah, so Isci ba Fan is another name for Asahara Shoko. And the Aum Shinri Kyo members who carried out all the vandalism yesterday were monsters in disguise. And you were just trying to stop them, not help them."

At this point Phil realized there was already a cover story for everything and he had no chance of penetrating the lies to show the man the truth. "No, they weren't monsters in DISGUISE!" he shouted, personally insulted. "They were ten freaking feet tall! Covered in spikes or blades or fire, sucking out people's souls! And the people with them weren't Aum Shinri Kyo, they were students at the Mugen Academy who were psychically programmed by Isci ba Fan! You can't... You can't possibly tell me that nobody remembers this!"

"Calm down, calm down. I'm sure that it felt very real to you..."

"Of course it felt real, it actually happened!" He sighed. "What, what about the FBI guy? You KNOW he's some kind of monster, right?"

"Are the monsters out to get you, Akens-san?" Good Cop put on his best sympathetic face, though it was hard. "Are you the only one who can see them?"

"Don't give me that!" Phil extended a finger at Good Cop; Bad Cop moved to take him down but Good Cop warned him off with a hand. "I know you can see him, because you're taking orders from him, and the little time I saw him just about everything he said was showing off the fact that he can read minds! He can walk through shadows, I bet you he NEVER takes off that hat and sunglasses, even inside, the FBI doesn't arrest people in other countries, the CIA does, and THEY don't do it out in the open, and none of what he does makes any sense from a law enforcement standpoint! It's like he's showing off the fact that he's an alien and daring you to stop him."

"He's an American," Bad Cop scoffed, "Americans are weird."

"Listen, Akens-san. It's going to be okay." Good Cop laid his hands on top of Phil's. "You're in police custody now, where the monsters can't get to you--"

"No, forget that. Call in the officers who've been working with him and let's interview THEM. Or just call him in here and ask him to take off his hat and glasses. Right now. I will show you, it's right in front of you."

"Buddy," said Bad Cop, "You have got much more important things to worry about than Agent Statler's sunglasses."

"The truth is always important," Phil pouted, arms crossed.

∙ ∙ ∙

Osaka Naru closed one eye and looked through her jeweler's eyepiece at the sapphire-in-silver ring. The Osa-P was closed, following yesterday's attack, while they repaired the fixtures and took a tally of what was damaged for their insurance company. Even if a gemstone looked fine on first glance, a closer examination could reveal hairline scratches or fractures that drastically reduced its value.

The official story was that their store was the victim of terrorism. Or vandalism. Or terrorist vandalism, as part of a larger campaign against the city of Tokyo. Display cases were smashed, stock damaged, holes put in walls, the carpet torn up. Naru's mother said she must have been so frightened by the barbarousness that she passed out, but was pretty sure it was vandal terrorists. That failed to explain why there was a band saw sitting, unplugged, on top of a smashed display case. Naru's mother guessed they were using it to smash things, but that made less than zero sense.

Naru remembered what happened, though. She remembered it perfectly. There was a youma, or some other kind of youma called something else, and like all other youma it was drawn to the Osa-P like a moth to a flame. Everyone in the store was screaming and panicking, save for the three people that followed it in, and Naru herself. Naru took cover behind a cabinet and was wondering if there was still a blowtorch in the back room she could use as a weapon -- it's worked well on youma before -- but when she saw just how big the youma was, and the whirring saw-ribbon threaded through her arms and neck, she decided she needed to stay in cover and hope Sailor Moon showed up for this one.

It wasn't Sailor Moon, but close enough, it was Sailor Neptune and Uranus. The fight was quick but brutal, with the impact force of their attacks sending youma and people flying all over, smashing and breaking. But, soon the youma was destroyed, back to the object it was made from. Uranus and Neptune had stayed behind momentarily to help restrain the youma's human assistants, and Naru had thanked them for saving the store (sort of) and her life; they'd smiled, and Uranus said "It's what we do, ma'am." It felt good to be able to thank someone for it, the window of time in which she could was very short.

Naru frowned. There was a crack on the underside of the gem, next to the setting; not something that really detracted from the beauty but still a noticeable flaw. They'd be able to sell it, but as an irregular for reduced value. She sighed and started to write down the description of the damage.

The bell hanging above the door rang, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. The door had been locked, and there was a sign hanging on it that said 'Sorry, we're CLOSED,' and her mother wouldn't be back for an hour, and the fixture people wouldn't be in until tomorrow due to their backlog. That only left one person it could be, the one who'd visited her after every youma encounter past the first couple.

"Osaka Naru," said the man in black, all business.

"Agent Waldorf," she responded in likewise manner.

"Lot of crazy stuff happened yesterday," said Waldorf as he walked toward her. "Lot of potential to cause a panic. That's why it's especially important that you keep your pretty little mouth shut about what happened."

She sighed. "I never talked before, and I haven't this time. It was terroristic vandalism like everyone said. They smashed one of the display cases with a band saw. There was no monster."

"Good. That's my girl. And, this way, can't you say you subdued the vandals on your own? That would be a nice boast to be able to make. Much better than saying Uranus and Neptune saved you from a monster..."

"...And having the store be shut down by the government and me and my mother living in a cardboard box under a bridge in Hokkaido." She sighed again, longer and louder. "I know. You told me before. I won't talk to anyone. Can I please go back to work?"

"Just checking in to make sure we're on the same page." He paused. "That's a nice-looking ring you have there. Doing an insurance inventory?"

She nodded. "Yeah, have to record everything that got damaged and how before we get any money back. This one has a crack on the underside, you can see it when the light shines on it the right way." She looked up at Waldorf's thin, but widening smile, and exhaled. "And you want me to tell them that it shattered, don't you?"

He plucked the ring out of her hand. "Whatever else can be said of you, Osaka Naru, nobody will claim you are not a team player."

∙ ∙ ∙

"So, you seem to be taking this... well."

Haruka stared into her reflection in the bus's mirror. "Why shouldn't I? The way I take it won't change anything. Anger or despair won't help me get the car back and it won't help us complete the mission, so why bother?"

Michiru shifted in her seat and coughed. "I know you feel something. It's not healthy to keep your emotions bottled up like this. You'll get a brain tumor."

"Then I can have a brain tumor until after the mission. Once it's over, if it's over, I'll start screaming profanities and vomiting blood if it would really make you happy."

Michiru got a mental image of Haruka having a Grade-A freakout and herself coaching her along, saying "Great! Really show me that intensity! Yes, you're taking me there!" and wasn't sure if she should laugh or look concerned.

"So, how far are we?" Haruka asked.

"A couple more blocks. Not far." Michiru shifted again, unable to find a position that didn't have a metal bar pressing into her thigh. "It's the last place I could be sure it was, but if we can go from there, we can map out its path further. It can't have gone too far before it stopped."

"And by 'it', do you..." Haruka looked around the bus to see if anyone was paying attention to their conversation, and lowered her voice. "...do you think that we're tracking down the creature or my car?"

"Doesn't matter to me. Does it matter to you?"

Haruka looked back out the window. "I'll be fine." Outside the window, a row of small, closely-spaced but well-maintained houses passed them by. As they passed one with a slightly shaggier front lawn, its meager area dotted with children's toys, there was a sudden flash of light that nobody else in the bus seemed to react to. Standing on the lawn was now a woman with pointed ears, charry-red skin, multicolored plastic streamers in place of hair, and large bicycle wheels coming out of her knees and shoulders. Haruka closed her eyes and banged her forehead against the window; Michiru wordlessly pulled the metal cord above them to signal the bus to stop.

∙

The daimon hopped in place as it waited for Sailor Uranus and Neptune to approach, then popped from out of the yard into the sidewalk once she thought they were close enough. "I've been waiting for you, Sailor Senshi!" she called to them in a cheery tone that sounded like she was hiding something in her cheeks. "You'd better be ready, though! I'm the fastest one on the block, and nothing bad can catch me now!" She bent her knees and put up her hands like she was getting ready to box.

Uranus's voice was like an approaching thunderstorm. "You... have ABSOLUTELY no idea how stupid it was to show yourself within five kilometers of me." She tilted her head until her neck cracked. "I am going to break you in half."

"Uh... and I am Sailor Neptune, appearing elegantly."

The daimon ran at them, riding its knee-wheels, and Neptune raised her arms to use a Deep Submerge; Uranus slapped them back down right before she ran head-on into the daimon's advance. Uranus readied a World Shaking, then spiked it into the ground between her knees, the recoil sending her flying forward into the daimon's face.

The daimon yelped in confusion, not ready for an attack, as Uranus's knees and fists drove into her chest. Before she had even landed Uranus was raining blows on her face, body, legs. She flailed around, trying to get a shot in, to pull out her bicycle chain, but could get nothing. Uranus deflected the first couple strikes, then caught one in her palm, twisted the daimon's wrist, and pulled back on her index finger until it snapped; yanked on the arm, spun the daimon around, and fired a World Shaking into the small of her back.

"They're here!" the daimon screamed in panic, voice trembling like she was sitting on a washing machine. "They're here! Get them now!" At her cue, a nearby manhole cover popped open, and four white-scaled lizardmen, carrying axes and spears, scurried from the hole toward Sailor Uranus.

Uranus snarled and drew the Space Sword from her hip, bisecting the daimon with the same fluid motion. The cut glowed yellow, the two halves slipped from each other, and then both were gone and a red children's bicycle fell to the sidewalk. The lizardmen in the lead of the attack formation stopped, claws scrabbling against the asphalt to cut his momentum.

"You want some too?" Uranus shouted, posture hunched and expression murderous. "You wanna be next? What do you want from me now, huh?" She took a step forward, the lizards took a step back. "You can't want my heart, you already took that. You already have my car. Already took my school. Want the Talisman? I gave it to your friend. What, do you want the clothes off my back?" She reached to her skirt with her free hand and tore a section off, she threw it towards the lizardman and it lazily fluttered to the ground in front of her. "Here! Take it! I'll run around naked! Want the jewelry? Yeah, that's got to be worth a couple yen!" She pulled the tiara from her forehead and threw it to the ground, pulled out her earrings and threw them into the lizardman's face. "Here! Take them! Sell them to a lizard pawn shop! Give them to your lizard wife! What else do you want from me, huh? Is it my blood? You here to steal my blood?" Her eye twitched and she extended her sword-arm. "Because if you are, you should have brought... your... Kryptonite!"

The lizardmen looked to each other, the one in the lead talking very low very fast, and then their heads jerked in unison to the manhole and they sprinted back inside. Uranus gave chase after them, but it was clear she'd never catch them. She looked into the black hole for a few seconds, waiting for an attack, then sighed and turned around.

On the front step of the house, there was a nine-year-old boy staring at her in slack-jawed awe. On the sidewalk, Sailor Neptune was staring at her in slack-jawed awe. The kid started to clap, met Uranus's gaze, and then remembered there was something incredibly important he had to do back inside.

"So, uh... how are you feeling, Sailor Uranus?"

Uranus smiled. "Lot better, actually!"

∙ ∙ ∙

"I'm not going to sugar-coat this. You're in a very bad situation, Mrs. Truitt."

Donna nodded and pouted her lip out a bit. "I know."

The detective nodded. "But I want to help you. I want to get you out of this."

"I know. I know you want to help me. I want you to help me." She batted her eyelashes, but he wasn't looking. "How can I help you help me?"

The detective sighed, relieved that things were going this easily, he could only imagine the difficulty the others were giving. "You'll have to sign a confession, tell us what you did, and who was with you. You can't do it in English, so we'll just write it out for you -- all we'll do is translate what you tell us. Once that's done we have a lot more options we can pursue."

"Isn't there..." Her hand crept up to the loaned white dress shirt she was wearing and undid the top two buttons. "...something I can do to help things along?"

"Yes. There is." The detective blinked. "Sign a confession. Like I just said."

She scooted back in her chair to give her chest more room to stick out. "But isn't there something... else I can do?"

It took him a second to realize what she was saying, because it was so astonishingly stupid he didn't expect it. "No. No, all I want is the confession."

"Come on," she said in what she thought was a seductive purr. "A nice guy like you shouldn't be spending all his time at the station... need to relax some time..."

"Oh, no." He took off his glasses and rubbed at his temples. "No, no, no, no no no you are not doing this. You are not trying this on me. You're doing something sane and rational, like throwing the chair through the one-way mirror and trying to subdue every officer in the station with your bare hands."

"Don't worry so much!" she whispered. "Let yourself go... you know you want to!"

"No. I don't. I do not, in fact, trip over every white woman that falls in my path. Most of us Japanese men don't! Especially when the white woman is being interrogated for weapons crimes and being a terrorist, by me!" He looked around the room as if he was looking for someone with some sense. "You know you smell like spoiled milk, right? You are trying to hit on me while smelling like expired dairy products. You ever wonder why Japanese people are always forcing politeness around you? It's because you smell and nobody wants to tell you. And nobody wants to have sex with you no matter how freakishly gargantuan your breasts are."

He turned around, threw his hands up in exasperation. While she thought nobody was looking, she pointed her nose into her armpit and gave a surreptitious sniff.

∙ ∙ ∙

Sailor Mars, Jupiter, and Venus stood at the edge of the subway platform, Venus with a small stack of papers with a subway schedule on top, Mars holding onto one cheap plastic flashlight and two thick metal Mag-Lites, Jupiter holding one more. All three Senshi had removed their shoes and were watching the subway tracks, waiting. "I'm still not sure this is a good idea," said Jupiter. "We should be going in with more firepower. Mercury should be here, her attacks would work."

"We're just here to do some recon, Jupiter," said Venus without looking up from the schedule. "We're not going to engage anything, and our powers will be enough to let us escape if we get attacked. This is a scouting mission, not a fighting one."

"I don't know," Jupiter said, "I'm not sure I'm really comfortable with being a Sailor Scout."

Mars grinned, and held up the red plastic flashlight dangling on a string from her wrist, her own image was inaccurately drawn on the side. "Somebody's grumpy they were out of bootleg Sailor Jupiter merchandise!"

A train came to a stop in front of them, they didn't move. "Hey!" Jupiter extended a finger at Ray in playful castigation. "They were sold out of Sailor Jupiter merchandise. That means I'm more popular than you two are."

"Whatever you have to say to get to sleep at night," said Venus, chuckling. The train doors closed and it whizzed past them into the dark cavern of the subway tunnel. "Okay, there's one more train, and then there's four minutes before the one after that. We break right, make for that recess there," she pointed into the tunnel, "and wait for the next train to pass."

"Hey, excuse me," said a young man with glasses and a 'Manziger Z' shirt behind them as he prodded Venus in the back. "You've been standing there for like three trains and you haven't done anything. If you're not going to jump off and kill yourselves, at least let someone else through who is!"

Venus handed the schedule off to Jupiter with a sigh, turned on her heel, and faced the man. As much as she would have loved to take him aside and show him all the love and beauty in the world and why his life was a precious thing that shouldn't be cast away, she was in a hurry, she'd have to give him the abridged version. She leaned forward, put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him on the lips for five seconds solid. She broke the kiss with a wet 'smack' noise and looked him in the eyes. "Do you still want to kill yourself now?"

"What are you -- Yes!" He was flabbergasted and insulted. "You can't solve all the problems in my life just by giving me a kiss!"

Venus nodded and turned to Jupiter, who looked confused for a second then rolled her eyes. Venus threw her arms around Jupiter's neck and kissed her, running one hand down her back and playing with her ponytail with the other; Jupiter hesitantly ran her fingers through Venus's hair. When they broke the kiss, a man at the back of the platform started clapping. "How about now?"

The man in the glasses put his hand to his chin and half-lidded his eyes, as if he was contemplating a very difficult math problem. "Well... I guess I can try to find a job again," he said after a time, then walked away to the street exit.

"So, that went to a pretty weird place," remarked Mars once he had left.

"What did you want me to do?" responded Venus. "I didn't want to let the man kill himself after we left. He just needed to be shown a little love, that's all, something to hold on to... and if it saved a life, I'm not ashamed of it."

"No, no, I..." Mars laughed nervously. "...I just didn't think you'd take 'showing him love' quite so literally."

Jupiter smacked her lips with a look of deep thought. "Sailor Venus, did you just get done eating an orange? Because I haven't seen one in the past couple hours."

"What? I haven't had anything orange-flavored all day. Why do you ask?"

The train moved up to the platform in front of them. Mars shifted from the her heels to her tiptoes and back. "Pret-ty weird place, indeed..."

∙

"So, what are we looking for, anyway?" Mars swept her flashlight back and forth, the illuminated circle dancing with those from Venus and Jupiter's lights on the concave walls of the dark, abandoned subway tunnel.

"A lot of things," Venus responded, voice raised enough to be heard from five meters away but not much further. "Signs, markings, tracks, evidence of recent travel, secret entrances and exits. Here's something..." She stopped to examine a half-decayed piece of paper, but it was just an ad for a Russian restaurant that had already gone out of business. "Nope, just looks like an ad that someone dropped on the platform and got blown in here."

"Why would there be many of those?" asked Jupiter. "Signs of passage, I mean. I know we're right next to the subway that daimon tried to escape into, but, it never got there, and the daimons didn't come from here originally. There wasn't a chance for them to leave anything behind. And those kinoris used the sewer, not the subway."

"Because, we're not after..." She paused and let Mars and Jupiter catch up to her so she could speak at a conversational level. "We're not looking for anything the daimons left. We're looking for stuff from whoever else was using the tunnels before."

"The... subway company?" Jupiter looked around. "It's just an unused subway line."

"That's where you're wrong. I was looking at these underground maps that Re-- Ma-- that that secretary guy got for us yesterday?" She held up the papers in her other hand, pointed her light at them, and gently waved them so they made a little noise. "This tunnel isn't just on the subway map now... it's never been on the subway map."

"That doesn't mean anything, does it?" Rei looked up and down the tunnel wall, not sure what was going to be there. "This could be where they sent then trains into when they get repaired, so they're out of the way."

"But how do they get in here when there's no rail, and where do the people work on them?" Venus was smiling now, though nobody was shining a light on her face to see. "No, this place is a secret. Nobody's supposed to ever go here. There's a whole secret network of tunnels running underneath Tokyo, accessing all the most important areas in the city, that the government denies all knowledge of. And this, here, where we're standing? Is either one of the tunnels, or leads to one of them."

"What?" Jupiter laughed in disbelief. "Pfft. You can't really believe any of that, it's just an old urban legend! Next are you going to tell me that you've..." She faltered a bit, but caught herself, "that there's really shinigami coming out of the Shirogane tunnel."

Venus shined her light in Jupiter's face, realized her mistake and shined it on her chest instead. "You were about to say 'you've seen a UFO,' weren't you?" She laughed. "That's what your standard statement of skepticism was going to be!"

"No, no, I, I just forgot the name of the tunnel for a second."

"Ooohhh, admit it." Mars smirked to herself. "You were going to say that it was as crazy as believing in UFOs, until you remembered what the Black Moon flew around in."

"Yes, yes, okay!" Jupiter sighed. "I was going to say it was as crazy as believing in UFOs. That's just the expression people use, all right? People say 'Maybe Sailor Moon will work that out for you' when they're talking about something that isn't going to happen, too, that's just an expression."

"I don't get why magical girls hiding out in Tokyo, demons taking human form, Dark Kingdom trying to subvert society from within, talking cats that look like normal cats, all of that's perfectly fine to you, but as soon as I say that the government is being deceptive about something it's all," her voice went low and dopey, "'Oh, don't listen to her, she's a crazy person.'"

"Who said I didn't think the government could lie?" Jupiter held up her index finger. "I didn't think there'd be a reason to lie about this."

"Trust me, Sailor Jupiter," said Mars, "and this is from personal experience: they don't need a reason to lie."

Soon the tunnel split, a branch going left and the tunnel continuing on straight. On the dusty concrete were a set of tire tracks, leading into the new branch and down the old tunnel.

"Where now?" asked Mars. Venus set down the papers and her light, and scrutinized the tracks in the light from the other two girls. The tracks into the left branch were more close together than the ones leading from straight ahead, and at the apex of the turn all of them swerved and ess-curved. She put out her hand, palm down with her thumb and pinky out, and slowly moved it along the ground. She glanced at the thickness of the tracks, turned her hand 90 degrees, and kept it moving on the same path while imitating the 'CREEEEE!' of brakes squealing. After a couple seconds, she moved her hand forward in its new direction, toward the new tunnel branch.

Venus got up and swept the hair out of her face. "I think whoever was driving this car was going down that way," she pointed to the tunnel on the left, "and coming from that way," she pointed straight ahead. "He had his car turned sideways when he hit the turn, so he must have been going pretty fast." It was a her that was going pretty fast, actually, but Sailor Venus doesn't know that. "We should follow where he was coming from, see if there's a garage or some other facility."

"Wait." Mars held up a hand. "What if he was driving back from somewhere and in a hurry to get back to the garage?"

"That's a good point." Venus contemplated. "It really could go either way. We don't want to split up..."

"We'll settle it like all great decisions are made." Mars held her flashlight in her armpit, held out her open palm and put her balled fist on top of it. "And we go 'jan, ken, pon, shoot!' I don't want a do-over because you threw your sign too early."

∙ ∙ ∙

"I'm not going to sugar-coat it for you..." the detective glanced down at the file in his hand, "...Neary-san. These are very serious charges."

"I just hope you're happy." Nadine's eyes were red, she wiped a tear away.

"But I think I can help you, if you're just willing to--"

"I could have murdered the Pope on live television and you'd never prosecute without a confession and everything out of your mouth is a lie until you get one," she spat as if the words tasted like wax. "So I hope you're happy. There's nobody higher up the food chain to go for, and you're going to let us go after a couple months because nobody is going to fall for your game and we're too stubborn or stupid to change our minds. So was it worth it? Because I hope it was."

"...Excuse me?"

"I hope they throw you a ticker-tape parade," she choked in a tone of voice clearly indicating she did not. "I hope they give you the key to the city and they name a bridge after you and you're a national hero. I hope you get as much as you can to look at it and say 'That was worth an innocent girl's life.'"

"Are you telling me about the..." He flipped past a couple pages in the file, "Pharaoh 90? That he'll strike again if you aren't released?"

"She's already dead." She sobbed once and put her hand to her mouth. "She was only a little girl and she didn't know how much life she had in front of her and now..." She shuddered. "Now she's gone. I wasn't there for her."

"If you're, uh," he flipped the file around, looking for the name, "talking about Tomoe Hotaru, she's in custody right--"

"Don't lie to me!" she shouted, but she couldn't look him in the eye. "You don't have her. They told you to say that so, what, so my 'accomplices' were all caught and I'd want to confess? We waited on the scene for ten minutes when they couldn't find her. Nobody listened to what I was saying about her. She got away."

He sighed. "Okay. We don't have her. You got me. I don't understand why that's brought you to tears."

"Read the file. I..." she shook her head. "Just read about the arrest."

He sighed. "'Suspects Nakami, Neary, Akens arrested by Agent Statler upon arrival at scene, contraband confirmed and located in their room (one M16 assault rifle, one Mosin-Nagant sniper rifle, two bags of ammunition, mixed caliber).'" He looked up at her, then skimmed the report in silence. "Uhh, suspect Tomoe fled on foot, attacked a shrine-keeper... 'suspect Neary became belligerent and combative, demanding either release or opportunity to negotiate Tomoe's surrender, repeatedly exclaiming...'" He let the file drop to the table. "'"You can't let her go on her own, she'll kill herself, she'll kill herself."'"

"We had her on suicide watch." She leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. "Someone always had to be close by, room away at most. She said she wanted to kill herself, we had to keep an eye on her. I got two hours of sleep last night so I could watch her sleep and make sure she wouldn't get up and slit her wrists in the bathroom. And, and all night..." Her voice cracked and the tears spilled out. "All night she was thrashing around, and she looked so scared, and I wished I could make it all better for her, but I couldn't, she, she had so many nightmares, all I could do was be here for her now and tell her it was okay and, and, and I wasn't, I couldn't be there for her, I let her down, she needed me and I let her down!"

"You... you just arrived in the country, she'd never left. How is it you're the one she's depending on?"

Nadine's head went into the table and she sobbed. "She didn't have anyone else, don't you get it! I had to be there for her because nobody else would! And, and, I failed her, she's GONE!"

∙ ∙ ∙

Chibi-Usa leaned on Hotaru's side, gently stroking her shoulder. She couldn't decipher technical notes, or help Ami put together her device, and she'd just slow down Venus, Mars and Jupiter, and she'd be of no use getting into a police station. She knew these things, but she didn't want to acknowledge them. But she also knew she could be here for her friend Hotaru, and she knew that was enough.

Ami worked slowly and carefully on a mass of wires and mechanical components laid out on a blanket of newspapers, frequently checking the handwritten instructions. Hotaru sat on the floor, back in her civilian clothes, slowly working her way through a stack of lab notes while Chibi-Usa leaned on her for support.

After minutes of silence, Ami looked up from her work. "Hotaru, have you found anything? If we know more specifics about, about other ways they could have summoned him or how they put it together, we'd be a lot further along."

"No." Hotaru rubbed at her eyes with her shirtsleeve. "No, I don't understand most of it, so it's slow going, but none of it looks like... it's all about heart crystals, or daimon creation, or... I can't do this." She threw the paper she was holding to the ground. "I just can't..."

"It's okay, Hotaru, it's okay." Chibi-Usa patted her on the shoulder. "That looked like really hard stuff. And I couldn't understand any of it, so you're still doing better than me!"

"It's not hard!" She looked away and chewed her knuckle. "No... it is hard, but it's not that it's hard. I just can't bear to do it."

Ami nodded. "Hotaru, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to, I mean, your father was... but, I just wanted to find a way..."

Hotaru sighed. "You already know the way to stop him." They were all silent after that, and eventually Hotaru spoke up again after it was clear nobody was going to interrupt her and take away her ability to talk about this. "It's... it's not just my father. It's that too, seeing things he wrote, the little phrases he used... the way his handwriting degraded over time. But, it's, Tellu and Eudial and Mimette and Viluy, I mean I knew by now what they were doing, but, there's stuff here and they're talking about meeting me and seeing something about me, and I remember when that happened, I remember them coming over to see me, and I had no idea they were sizing me up for how to make me a human portal..."

"Don't worry, Hotaru." Chibi-Usa smiled, tried to get a smile from Hotaru, failed. "We're your friends. We're not going to hurt you like them, we just want you to be happy."

"That's, that's just it. I liked it when they came over. Kaori, I always thought she was trying to steal Mom's place, but the rest of them... I didn't see them enough to call them friends, but, but they were certainly like cousins I didn't get to see often. They, they had fun with me. And after I... after the Mistress, I, I thought it was all a lie and they were just trying to get close to me for their work."

"But they were evil, Hotaru. We're not going to hurt you like that, we won't lie to you."

"Mimette let me braid her hair and we talked about idol singers until two in the morning. Eudial would come over every time the computer was acting up, and she always had some great new computer game that just came out in California that she wanted to show me. Tellu, this was just a couple of years ago the Takrazuka Revue was doing a musical adaptation of JFK, and I thought it sounded so silly I had to go, and Dad said I shouldn't because he thought it was going to be all about the Zapruder film, so Tellu got me a ticket and she snuck me in like it was an R-15 movie and I thought it was just so cool because I'd snuck in to see something for grown-ups. And, and even Viluy, she didn't talk to me a whole lot but one time she just came there out of the blue with two tickets to Puro-Land, said she'd won them in a contest and couldn't find anyone to buy them and letting them expire would be a waste of resources."

"Hotaru, I know it hurts that they'd pretend to be your friends. It's happened to me." Chibi-Usa nodded slowly. "But you're with friends, now!"

"No..." Hotaru shook her head, voice cracking, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "No, that's not... None of that's in here. And most of it's about me. Everything that was part of an experiment, or that was supposed to make me Mistress Nine, they kept a record of. The stuffed animal they gave me that was supposed to make me trust them more and be more open to the implantation, that's in here. Eudial, she wrote down where it was in my room in four different notes. Nothing about playing 'Red Baron' and the both of us squealing and covering our eyes whenever we were about to crash." She gestured at the last file she'd been reading. "I said she was trying to take my mother's place, Kaori was always mocking me, I hated her and she hated me... and that's her talking about how to make up this chemical so I'd absorb it through my skin, and that it would be less efficient than, than injecting it but it wouldn't hurt me nearly as much." She sniffed. "I used to get these big, Dad called them booster shots, these injections with this huge needle every month. I hated it, I always cried, and Kaori called me a baby, and six years ago I stopped getting them. Because Kaori figured out a way to do it that wouldn't hurt me as much. And now she's dead. I killed her."

"You didn't kill her, Hotaru! The Mistress Nine did, not you. She's the evil one, not you." Chibi-Usa held her close. "And Kaori was only giving you those chemicals to make you into the Mistress Nine. It doesn't matter how she did it to you, she can't do it to you again."

"Because if she was just evil why wouldn't she keep on hurting me? I wasn't going to fight back. Why not just, just tie me to a chair so I can't escape?" Hotaru returned Chibi-Usa's hug and sobbed into her neck. "Why would she care about what I felt?"

"Hotaru..." Ami chewed her lip as she recollected her thoughts. "You know there's evil in the world. There's things that are nothing but hatred and malice for everyone and want everyone to suffer as much as they do. That's what the Pharaoh is. That's what Queen Metallia and the Death Phantom were. The Sailor Senshi are here to fight that kind of evil when it appears. But that's not what most evil is. People..." She thought about Nephrite, dying in Naru's arms. "People with evil in their hearts can have other things in them, too. They can even love other people in their own sad way. Evil can be black and white, but, most of the time... it's human."

Hotaru looked at Chibi-Usa and held her tighter.

∙ ∙ ∙

Kunimatsu Takaji tapped his foot impatiently. His hair and dress were impeccable, the pants of his navy blue suit still creased as if he'd never sat down in them. In his left hand he had a long coil of rubber hose and a black plastic garbage bag. A plastic badge with his name on it was clipped to his lapel, perfectly parallel with the line formed by his breast pocket.

The door to the security office clicked open and revealed a pudgy, balding policeman of about forty. He blinked when he saw Takaji's face, glanced down at the badge to confirm his identity. "Kunimatsu-san! I'm sorry, I thought you would be meeting the Captain, I didn't expect you back here..."

"I am having a very unpleasant day," said Takaji, his tone clipped and even. "I am not in the mood for small talk. Is the suspect named Itohiro Nakami in interrogation room eight?"

"Yes, sir, just like you asked." The policeman gestured to the bank of monitors behind him. "You can watch him on the camera if you want."

"I don't want. Interrogation room eight does not have a one-way mirror, correct?"

The cop nodded. "Yes sir, like I said over the phone, although we usually don't use it because--"

"Shut off the camera for interrogation room eight."

"Uhh..." The cop looked down at the bag and hose in Takaji's hand. "Sir, I'm sorry, but all interrogations have to be recorded, I can't just..."

"And whoever told you that, I outrank him." Takaji's eye twitched, but his voice remained perfectly calm. "I give orders to the person who gives orders to the person who told you not to turn off the cameras. Now shut off the camera for interrogation room eight."

The cop put his hands out in front of him to feel as if there was some distance and shook his head. "Sir, these are regulations, suspect interrogations have to be recorded. There's limits on what we're allowed to do to provoke a confession."

"Do not tell me about the limits on what the police can do. I know them. I wrote some of them. Do not talk to me about regulation." He rolled his neck, but produced no cracking noise. "Do you know how far a person can fall in the ranks of the police hierarchy? Did you know, for example, that there are ranks lower than civilian? There are people walking around Japan who are legally obligated to obey every command given to them by another human being, and all of them have done something to piss me off."

The cop swallowed nervously, turned around, and flicked a switch on his control console. One of the monitors went dead. "When, when should I turn it back on, sir?"

"When I tell you to turn it on and not before. If anyone asks you to turn it on before then, tell them your orders came from me. And do not let anyone into interrogation room eight before I say to, either. Understand?"

The cop nodded and handed him the key, and Takaji briskly walked to the door of Interrogation Room Eight. He pulled open the door to see Itohiro Nakami sitting at the table, eyelids drooping, head suspended between his palms, shirt and slacks in their perpetual state of disarray. "It's really you. Itohiro Nakami. Head of the Hoffmann Institute."

Nakami looked up at Takaji, standing in the doorway. "Who are you?" he said in a manner he thought was wary but was really more drunken.

Takaji sighed, stepped forward into the room, pulled the door closed behind him, locked it. He walked over to the table and wordlessly emptied out the garbage bag, leaving a head of lettuce, two cans of Pocari Sweat, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol sitting between them. And in an instant Kunimatsu Takaji the aging but well-groomed head of the National Police Agency was gone, and in his place was a short, grey-skinned man with a head too big for his body and featureless black eyes too big for his head. He wore a child-sized kimono that was actually slightly too small for him. "Itohiro-san..." the Fraal said, shaking his head and speaking as if he was disappointed and nothing else, "what the hell are you doing here?"

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

XENOFORM: YOUMA (Part 2 of 2: Creation and Mechanics)

Youma can be created much like human heroes and NPCs, in fact the process is almost identical until the last step. Youma come in Marginal, Ordinary, Good, and Amazing qualities, though this is determined by their creation rather than a reflection of their training and experience as it is with human NPCs.

It would take far too much time and effort for any reasonable person to determine all the possible factors that can affect a person or object and change its resulting youma, and there's no real reason to try. In nearly every case it is entirely sufficient for a player or Gamemaster to create a youma character, then look at it and come up with a template that would result in a youma with those stats.

To create a youma, first allocate points to each of its six stats, just like a normal character creation. Marginal youma use the standard 60 attribute points, Ordinary have 62, Good have 64, and Amazing have 66. If the youma is being made from a human template, and the human is already known in the campaign, feel free to use the human's stats as a baseline but don't feel compelled to stick to them. Youma have a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 15 in any stat.

Youma of Marginal or Ordinary quality are considered nonprofessional but Good and Amazing youma can be Combat Specs, Free Agents, Tech Ops and Diplomats, and must obey the attribute requirements for their profession. If the youma has a profession, it receives all of the standard benefits.

Next, purchase skills. Each youma begins with the same six free broad skills as humans, Athletics, Vehicle Operation, Stamina, Knowledge, Awareness, and Interaction. One would think youma wouldn't have any Knowledge, especially if they've existed for less than a day, but they appear to gather a general impression of "common knowledge" from people in the area the same way they gather psychic impressions of something to form themselves around it. Youma are not humans and do not receive the free broad skill or five free skill points that humans do. Youma can never be mindwalking talents, and cannot purchase FX or Psionic skills that haven't been granted to them by one of their youma Alterations.

Next, purchase perks and flaws. Certain perks or flaws altering the youma's (theoretical) relationship with society should be off limits -- a creature that has been alive for 18 hours can't be a celebrity no matter how famous the thing it was made out of -- but a great many can be justified with some creative interpretation. A youma can create some valuable material, making it Filthy Rich; it could be made of an object that powerful people want returned to its original condition and thus have a Powerful Enemy.

Then, choose the specific magical qualities of the youma, called "Alterations". Each youma has a number of YP to spend on alterations: Marginal youma have 3, Ordinary have 6, Good have 9 and Amazing have 12. Every kind of alteration has three levels of power, Ordinary, Good, and Amazing. Ordinary alterations cost 1 YP, Good ones cost 2, and Amazing cost 4. One extra YP can be purchased at creation at a cost of 15 skill points. The same alteration cannot be purchased more than once. Some alterations can increase attributes beyond their maximum, but ones that give skill ranks beyond the maximum skill level are only usable at the skill-capped level: an achievement level 1 youma who gets an alteration that gives him 5 ranks of a skill uses it as if he has 3 ranks in it, upon achieving level 2 he will use it as if it were rank 4 without putting any further points into it.

Once the youma's alterations are picked out, character creation proceeds as normal (you may want to go back and change your skill allocation, if you put points in something that went over the skill cap, or to put something in an FX skill you received from an alteration). If a youma receives a psionic skill from an alteration, treat it as an FX skill that uses FX Energy Points; youma can never use psionics.

All youma have the following qualities: Good toughness against non-magical HI and LI attacks, receive a 1 action penalty instead of becoming unconscious when their Stun track is filled, provoke the "Taioron Reaction" unless specifically suppressed, cannot survive when too far from an active dark matter gateway or reactor. Below is a list of 15 youma Alterations, each of three strengths; this is by no means a complete listing and players and GMs are encouraged to come up with their own.

YOUMA ALTERATIONS:

- Enervation: One common function of youma is to drain, retain, and deliver back to their masters stores of human bio-psionic energy, often for use in Entropomancy Arcane Magic FX. Youma drain the power from humans and store it in special magical reserves until it can be emptied and repurposed. As great, great quantities of bio-psionic energy are required for more advanced applications of Entropomancy FX, practitioners will send out youma in great amounts and great frequency. This alteration is almost never found naturally on youma, but can be quite reliably added to a youma at creation if the creator wishes it. 'Life energy' drained from a human has multiple forms -- if a victim has FX Energy Points, these are drained first, then any Psionic Energy Points, and finally Fatigue durability, but once drained they are all the same type of energy and cannot be re-accessed. A youma who drains an FX Energy Point from a human may choose for it to refill its own FX Energy Pool by 1 point, but can't change her mind later. Only mortal humans who do not have the Entropomancy broad skill can be drained of their energy.

Ordinary: The youma has 4 FX Energy Points and can store up to 15 total points of life energy, tallied separately than FX Energy Points. To drain energy, the youma must grapple them with an unarmed attack using Unarmed -- Brawl or Acrobatics -- Defensive Martial Arts, and then spend an FX Energy Point. Each round thereafter until the hold is broken, the youma drains 1 point of life energy and places it in her own reserve.

Good: The youma has 6 FX Energy Points and can store up to 25 total points of life energy. It may drain energy in unarmed combat like the Ordinary level, but may also employ the use of devices in order to assist in the energy draining: by spending one FX Energy Point on an inanimate object, the youma enchants it, and at a later time with the activation of a command spell the object will drain energy from its owner remotely and send it directly to the owning youma. Enchanted objects can only drain energy from people who have had prolonged physical contact with them in the past 12 hours, lose their enchantment after two days away from their creator, and the drain has a maximum object to victim range of 2 meters and owner to object range of 2.5 km.

Amazing: The youma has 8 FX Energy Points and can store up to 40 points of life energy. It has all the abilities of Ordinary and Good levels of this alteration, but can enchant animate objects as minions to gather energy independently of their creator. These animated minions cannot fight or defend themselves, but can creep their way into a great many places and draw energy from a great deal of people, leaving their creator free to pursue other matters.

- Defensive Coating: The youma's construction is more durable than most, or the youma is made out of an especially resilient material, which makes it more able to shrug off damage. Often found in object-template youma made from dense, durable substances, or objects that are viewed as protecting someone emotionally or physically.

Ordinary: The youma gains armor of rating (d4 1/d4/d4-1).

Good: The youma gains armor (d6 1/d4 1/d4). Its toughness against En-type attacks improves to Good, but it retains a weakness to magical attack.

Amazing: The youma gains armor (d6 2/d6 1/d6 1). Its toughness against En attacks improves to Good, and its toughness against LI and HI-type attacks improves to Amazing. This youma will be almost impossible to kill.

- Illusionist: The youma is a lord of deception, weaving a tapestry of deception in the very air to deceive the unwary. It is capable of creating life-like images or sounds in order to trick others into doing its bidding and to avoid physical confrontation. Stage magicians and their tools, carnival workers, and on occasion televisions can create youma with this alteration.

Ordinary: The youma gains 4 FX Energy Points and the Illusion -- Moving Pictures Arcane Magic FX specialty skill at rank 2. Unlike the normal version of this skill, auditory components may be included as part of the illusion.

Good: The youma gains 7 FX Energy Points and the Moving Pictures skill at rank 4. The duration of Moving Pictures's effect is doubled, and the image does not stop moving if the youma stops paying attention to it so long as she is within 50m.

Amazing: The youma gains 9 FX Energy Points and the Moving Pictures skill at rank 4, with enhanced duration and effect as with the Good level of this alteration. The youma also gains Mesmerism -- Hypnotize at rank 2, its effect can be used remotely on individuals interacting with the youma's illusion who have been doing so for five minutes or longer.

- Keen Senses: The youma is good at locating its prey, even when normal tracking might be impossible. It gains a bonus to Awareness -- Perception checks, Investigate checks, or WIL feat checks made in which sight, hearing, touch, taste or smell play a part, and may also gain extrasensory abilities. Often found in object-template youma made from recording equipment, or animal-template youma made from such animals as a hawk.

Ordinary: The youma gains a -2 bonus to the listed skill checks.

Good: The youma gains a -2 bonus to the listed skill checks, and also has an additional physical sense not possessed by normal human beings. The ability to see in the infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, or gamma ray portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, the ability to sense tremors on bare earth, or electrical senses akin to a shark's "lateral line" are all good examples.

Amazing: The youma gains a -3 bonus to the listed skill checks and gains the ESP psionic broad skill, the Clairvoyance skill at rank 3, and 4 FX Energy Points.

- Master Energy: The youma is strongly associated with some element or energy -- cold, fire, electricity, light, and radiation have all been reported -- and can command it as a general commands an army. Many people and objects can create youma with this power, even thought most of them aren't consciously associated with a kind of "energy". This power can be substituted for youma that have power over a certain material as well, water being the most common example, just substitute the appropriate matter skills for the energy ones.

Ordinary: The youma gains the Energy -- Energy Blast Super Power FX skill at rank 1, of the appropriate energy type, and 5 FX Energy Points.

Good: The youma gains Energy Blast and Energy Control, both of the appropriate energy type and at rank 3, and 8 FX Energy Points.

Amazing: The youma gains Energy Blast, Energy Control, and Energy Field all at rank 5, and 13 FX Energy Points. Youma who actually use energy, but not matter, may instead substitute Energy Field for Brick -- Immunity to the appropriate energy type.

- Melee Weapon: Some aspect of the youma's body is suitable as a melee weapon, or the youma is created with one that always seems to return to her side. While this is an obvious quality for youma made out of melee weapons, or people famous for their use, it also applies to others: carpenters with their hammers, chefs with their cleavers, nurses with gargantuan hypodermic needles. Melee weapons can use any of the three Melee Weapon subskills -- Bludgeon, Blade, Powered, whenever the below notes say "melee skill" substitute the appropriate type for the particular youma's weapon. Youma may have lethal or nonlethal weapons.

Ordinary: The youma gains 1 free rank of its melee skill. A lethal weapon does d4w/d6w/d6 2w, a nonlethal one d4s/d6 1s/d6 2s, LI/O.

Good: The youma gains 2 free ranks of its melee skill. A lethal weapon does d4 2w/d6 2w/d4m, nonlethal d4 1s/d4 3s/d6 4s, LI/O.

Amazing: The youma gains 3 free ranks of its melee skill. A lethal weapon does d8 1w/d8 2w/d4 1m, nonlethal d6 1s/d6 3s/d8 4s, LI/O.

- Protean Form: Many youma are able to manipulate and alter their physical forms. Whether to increase their strength or escape danger, for practical reasons or vanity, many youma can use the fact that their physical material isn't supposed to exist to their own benefit. Human-template youma made from an especially duplicitous person can often have these powers -- if your husband turns into a youma that can change shape, hire a private investigator.

Ordinary: Choose 1 specialty skill of the Body Alteration Super Power FX broad skill. The youma gains 1 rank of it and 3 FX Energy Points.

Good: Choose a Body Alteration specialty and gain 3 ranks in it, and 5 FX Energy Points. As a full-round action the youma may reduce one of its physical stats (CON, DEX, STR) by up to 2 to increase another by the same amount; it cannot do this again until the first change is reverted.

Amazing: Gain 2 Body Alteration specialty skills at rank 3, 7 FX Energy Points, and the youma can re-allocate up to four points of physical stats at a time.

- Ranged Weapon: As with "Melee Weapon", only the youma has some kind of regenerating or easily replenished ranged/projectile weapon. Knives, bullets, thorny spines, rocks, seeds, basketballs, acid spit, all could serve as a youma's ranged weapon. If a youma has an energy-based attack, such as a flamethrower or laser, but isn't really a master of flame or light, it's probably a normal Ranged Weapon. Youma ranged attacks can use any of the Heavy Weapons, Modern Ranged Weapons, or Primitive Ranged Weapons skills, or Athletics -- Throw; if a weapon has no clear skill to use, it's Athletics -- Throw. Youma ranged attacks have a standard range of 5/10/30, are of Ordinary intensity, fire only in single-shot mode, and every 3 shots expends 1 FX Energy Point, however they have several optional qualities below:

∙ Area Attack: The ranged attack creates a larger area of damage, perhaps an explosion or a large blob of corrosive goo. The damaging range is 2 meters for Amazing, 4 for Good, and 6 for Ordinary damage, however the attack is more inaccurate and now sustains a 2 step penalty.

∙ Armor Penetrating: The attack does damage of Good intensity. This counts as three options.

∙ Extended Range: The weapon's range increases to 30/60/200.

∙ Hawk Eye: The weapon is very accurate and gains a -1 accuracy modifier every time this option is taken.

∙ Persistent: Something about the attack sticks to the target, like fire, acid, or little spiny growths. Whoever is hit by this attack will continue to take d4-2 Wound damage per round for d6 rounds or until they take a round to clear the damaging material off them.

∙ Rapid Fire: The weapon is capable of burst-fire mode. Taking this option twice allows the weapon to autofire.

∙ Subdual: The attack has a nonlethal mode for capturing targets. The youma can choose each time the weapon is used to convert all damage dealt to stun.

Ordinary: The youma gains 1 free rank of its ranged skill. The ranged attack does d4w/d6w/d6 2w and has one of the above options.

Good: The youma gains 2 free ranks of its ranged skill. d4 1w/d4 3w/d6 3w, two of the above options.

Amazing: The youma gains 3 free ranks of its ranged skill. d6 1w/d6 2w/d4m, four of the above options.

- Regeneration: The youma is capable of mending its own wounds to quickly get back to the action. A youma with Regeneration may not be able to withstand the same amount of damage as one with Defensive Coating all at once, but if it fights many times over a longer period it may absorb enough damage to kill the more durable youma and escape unharmed. Activating Regeneration is normally reflexive and requires no action, however, at creation this alteration may be purchased to require full-round concentration to use and heal twice as much per round. Youma made from plants or reptiles often have this power.

Ordinary: The power can be activated for a total of 8 rounds per day and heals 1 point from each track of the user's durability per round.

Good: 12 rounds per day, 1 point per round.

Amazing: 12 rounds per day, 2 points of each damage type per round.

- Unearthly Agility: The youma is unnaturally fast and dextrous for its size and build. Human-template youma made from sprinters, acrobats, and thieves can have this alteration, as can object-template youma made from items associated with them, or animal-template youma made from cheetahs, gazelles, monkeys, etc.

Ordinary: The youma's Dexterity score is increased by 2.

Good: The youma's DEX is increased by 2, its DEX resistance modifier improves by 1 step, and its action check gets a bonus of -1 step.

Amazing: The youma's DEX is increased by 3, its DEX resistance modifier gets 1, its action check gets -1 step, it gains the Movement -- Fusillade Super Power FX specialty skill at rank 3, and 4 FX Energy Points. Series IX youma cannot have this alteration as they cannot pay the Fusillade skill's additional cost of 1 Fatigue point per extra action taken.

- Unearthly Presence: The youma is beautiful (or handsome) to behold, ironically having a far LESS "Unearthly" presence than other youma and able to easily be accepted as a normal, charismatic human being. At higher levels, this youma becomes utterly striking, commanding the attentions of all nearby with a simple gesture. This alteration is found on object-template youma made from cosmetic or beauty supplies, or human-template youma for models, movie stars, or temptresses; it can also be engineered onto a youma that will need to pass as human. Series IX youma cannot possess this alteration at any level.

Ordinary: The youma's Personality score is increased by 2, and it may assume human form. While in human form it resembles its true youma self in general build and facial structure, but with no abnormal skin color or bodily features; it may interact with humans without them being affected by the Taioron Reaction. Entering and exiting human form is reflexive and takes no action.

Good: The youma's PER is increased by 2, it may assume human form, it gains the Telepathy -- Suggest psionic specialty skill at rank 1, and 4 FX Energy Points.

Amazing: The youma's PER is increased by 3, it may assume human form, it gains 8 FX Energy Points, it gains the Telepathy -- Suggest skill at rank 4, telepathic suggestions last for 2, 4 or 6 hours on an O/G/A success, and receives the "Delusion" rank benefit for the Suggest skill at no cost.

- Unearthly Brilliance: The youma possesses startling intelligence, that is almost always put to ill use. Computers or textbooks, as well as people renowned for their intelligence, can often create a youma with this alteration. Series IX youma cannot possess this alteration at any level.

Ordinary: The youma's Intelligence score is increased by 2. If purchased at character creation this does increase the number of available skill points for the youma to spend.

Good: The youma's INT is increased by 2, its INT resistance modifier improves by 2 steps, and it gains the benefit of the Concentration perk as described in the Alternity PHB.

Amazing: The youma's INT is increased by 3, its INT resistance modifier gets 2, it gets the Concentration perk, the Metaconscious -- Genius and Hyper Learning Super Power FX specialty skills at rank 2, and 5 FX Energy Points.

- Unearthly Endurance: The youma is implacable, unrelenting, an unstoppable juggernaut. It can absorb great amounts of punishment and still keep coming undaunted.

Ordinary: The youma's Constitution score is increased by 2.

Good: The youma's CON is increased by 2, it gains a -2 bonus to any CON-based skill or feat check, and it ignores up to 2 points of action penalties for having stun, wound, fatigue, or mortal damage.

Amazing: The youma's CON is increased by 3, it gains a -2 bonus to CON-based checks, it ignores up to 4 points of action penalties from damage, and if rendered unconscious by wound damage it may attempt to shake it off with a Resolve -- Physical check as if it were stun damage. It is still dead when he has no Mortal durability remaining.

- Unearthly Might: The youma's strength is beyond anything a human could attain, bare knuckles shattering concrete and tempered steel. Most youma with this alteration are human-templated, but object-template youma made from industrial equipment can have it too.

Ordinary: The youma's Strength score is increased by 2.

Good: The youma's STR is increased by 2, its STR resistance modifier improves by 1, and melee and unarmed damage it causes is improved by 1, see "Table P9: Strength & Damage" in the Alternity PHB.

Amazing: The youma's STR is increased by 3, its STR resistance modifier is 1, melee and unarmed damage it causes is 1, it gains the Chi -- Power Strike Super Power FX specialty skill and 4 FX Energy Points.

- Unearthly Resolve: The youma is utterly driven, focused, and centered, possessing amazing willpower. It cannot be bargained with, it cannot be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear. Series IX youma cannot possess this alteration at any level.

Ordinary: The youma's Will score is increased by 2.

Good: The youma's WIL is increased by 2, its WIL resistance modifier improves by 1, and it gains two Last Resort Points.

Amazing: The youma's WIL is increased by 3, its WIL resistance modifier is 1, it gains 2 Last Resorts, and its Last Resort points are refilled at a rate of two per session. 


	9. Double Header

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

The real Kunimatsu Takaji was the head of the National Police Agency and served in that position with distinction and dedication; he is not, as far as I can tell, an alien.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

"Well, here I am," Sailor Moon said as she held open the changing room door. She pulled out the red ornament from her left hair-odango and let her hair fall unbound to the backs of her thighs. "Do I look criminal enough?" She slouched forward, stuck out her jaw, squinted, pushed her hands into her pockets.

Tuxedo Kamen nodded and stepped inside. Sailor Moon had thrown on a too-large pair of blue jeans and a baggy T-shirt colored to look like camouflage fatigues, it bulged oddly where the ribbon on her chest pressed against it. All of her costume was covered up save the bottoms of the boots; with her hair out and figure disguised nobody could recognize her as Tsukino Usagi or Sailor Moon, and anyone who pieced together that she was one still wouldn't know she was the other. "If I didn't know it was you, I would be showing you the error of your ways now. Though I hope that 'Wheeler-san' doesn't mind us using his clothes."

"Thanks!" Moon grinned, never even paused to think that she was taking a criminal appearance as a compliment. "And Hotaru-chan said he would be fine with it, didn't she? I'm sure he won't mind if we come to break him out of jail."

"Of course..."

"Mamo- uh, Tuxedo Kamen-sama... What's wrong?" Moon stood on her tiptoes and hiked up her pants to try to stop stepping on the ankles.

"Oh, nothing, don't worry yourself." He held up Sailor Moon's Disguise Pen and looked at it, then down at the police uniform it had placed on him. "It's simply that I usually come to rescue those in danger, and," he puffed his cheeks and exhaled, "impersonating a police officer may be outside my realm of expertise."

"It's not like you're really impersonating a police officer, though." She popped open her case of purple eyeshadow and started rubbing her brush on it. "Well, you are. But it's not bad, this time! When people say it's a bad thing to pretend to be a police officer and get someone out of jail, they don't mean when that person was put there by an evil shadow man."

"Oh, I agree totally. It's still something to which I am unaccustomed, that's all." He closed his eye and brushed the hair out of it, letting Moon apply the makeup. "You need a man to be the arresting officer, and that's more important than where my personal comfort zone resides."

Moon closed one eye and squinted. "It looks okay... I think I probably should have used a lighter blue first and layered it. It would look more natural." She opened her eyes and stood back. "I'll know for next time, right?"

Tuxedo Kamen blinked a few times to work off the thicker clumps of makeup. "I should hope there wouldn't be too many more chances to apply this skill."

"Well, you never know, I still think it could come in handy." She tore open the blister-wrap on a children's policeman playset, pulled out the realistic-looking toy handcuffs and both keys, and let the rest of the set stay in their plastic bubbles. "Okay," she said, handing the cuffs to Tuxedo Kamen, "I'm a hooligan, I was shoplifting, and you caught me. I punched you in the eye, so you decided you had to take me down to the station instead of just calling my parents. And the station is just a few blocks away so it was faster to walk. Right?"

"Right." He slid the toy cuffs around her wrists and slipped the key into his pocket, though he thought Sailor Moon could break the flimsy chain linking the cuffs if she wanted to. "And should we encounter any mind-reading shadow men, we will be able to immediately fight them without transforming and leaving ourselves vulnerable, and if anyone else sees through our disguises, they will see another secret identity. I'm worried this plan is actually a bit too good." He grabbed her arm roughly and prepared to drag her out of the room, then paused. "When this is over... do you think we should ask Chibi-Usa-chan if Crystal Tokyo's criminal justice code has a 'evil shadow man' clause?"

Sailor Moon was about to start loudly and coarsely protesting police brutality, but she was giggling too hard to say anything.

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 9: DOUBLE HEADER ∙ ∙ ∙

TOKYO METROPOLITAN POLICE HEADQUARTERS, INTERROGATION ROOM EIGHT KASUMIGASEKI, TOKYO, JAPAN MONDAY FEBRUARY 21, 1995 5:54 PM 

"I'm sorry, that was rude of me. Would you prefer that I call you 'Itohiro-san' or 'Vesin'?"

Itohiro Nakami stared at the kimono-clad little grey alien, his illusory face showing a mix of disdain and dread. "'Itohiro-san' should work just fine. You have me at a disadvantage, I don't know either one of your names."

"You can call me Kunimatsu Takaji, then," said the Fraal as he pushed his chair closer to the table, "and that should be enough for here." He sat down opposite Nakami and tried to meet his gaze, then realized he wasn't actually looking into his eyes. "You can let that illusion drop now. If you don't have the energy to speak telepathically then it must be a great strain on you to maintain it. The cameras are off and we aren't going to be disturbed. The director of the NPA can order these kinds of things."

"No thanks, Kunimatsu-'san', I think I'll stay the way I am. So, the Ahotti have wormed their way this far up the ladder, that one of you is now in charge of the entire police agency and using it to carry out your own petty vendettas?"

"I didn't know if you'd eaten in a while," said Takaji as if he hadn't heard anything, "so I brought you a little snack." He gestured at the soft drinks and lettuce. "Not much, I know, but it won't give us diarrhea like most terrestrial food, and I didn't have time to prepare something more fancy. That's actually the real reason they make the soda, you know, so that we could have something to drink we didn't get from a pharmacy, an auto shop, or a liquor store. Humans like it too, I guess. I heard you were pretty tired, so I brought something for that, too. Don't want you falling asleep when the humans can see you."

Nakami crossed his arms. "So you control the police and you control the soft drink company. Are all of Japan's government and corporations dancing on the Ahotti's strings?"

"Oh, Itohiro-san... oh, Nakami, I suppose I should call you by the American fashion to which you're accustomed, but then again that's a large part of your problem, isn't it?" He shook his head and made a 'tsk-tsk' noise. "The Ahotti don't control Japan's government. We participate in it. To say that we control it would require there to be a single issue in which the Liberal Democratic Party and the Ahotti party are not in complete agreement."

"Both of you are political parties filled with old people with a paralytic fear of change. You both hold back progress and pine for a yesteryear that never existed, though your only true allegiance is to political power. You both would rather let a problem fester than admit you were ever capable of wrongdoing and address it... and your draconian and regressive policies are an enduring reminder of the worst parts of the past of -- and are an utter embarrassment to -- your nation and your species respectively." Nakami nodded "Yes, I can see why you'd see eye to eye on a lot of things."

"Wow, I get the feeling if we let you out you're going to go back to passing out poorly mimeographed political screeds on a street corner! I was thinking more along the lines of, we're both conservative parties who value thought before action, using tried-and-true methods, who have been in power for almost as long as their respective governments have existed, and their only opposition comes in the form of agitators who feel like changing everything for the sake of changing it." Takaji popped open one of the cans of Pocari and took a swig, then continued. "But let's just imagine for a moment that we aren't the same party. That there's an invasion. The Ahotti are secretly infiltrating the Japanese government to bring it under our sinister control and the Prime Minister and the whole Diet are dancing on our puppet strings. What did we make? An ordered society where violent crime is almost unheard of, that still retains its own unique identity in the face of American cultural hegemony, producing technological innovations that sometimes surpass what we have on the mothership, that's one of the biggest economic powerhouses on the planet." He took another drink. "Yes, I can certainly see why you'd want to stop us from carrying out that malicious mission."

"And if all it costs the people is their freedom?" Nakami scoffed. "Why, that's a bargain at twice the price!"

Takaji sneered. "Don't try to pretend that I'm the preacher from 'Footloose' here, that we take away everyone's joy so things will be predictable. You damn well know..." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Look. The Ahotti know a lot more about your organization than you'd like to think. We only get bits and pieces, sure, but we keep our ears to the ground... so to speak. We know about the 'addiction' you were grappling with last year."

"Is this a threat?"

"It's a segue. Now, it's okay to get a little overwhelmed or infatuated with some aspect of human culture." Takaji set his drink down and leaned forward, one leg crossed over the other. "Myself, I like to collect model trains. Big collection in my apartment, bigger one back on the mothership. Everybody needs a hobby. Computer games are a perfectly normal hobby, nobody's going to judge you for that. But when you're up until 6 in the morning, falling asleep at your keyboard in an unlocked office, neglecting your duties to the organization you founded to play more? When your senior staff has to destroy the install disks, delete the game, and inspect all incoming software orders to make sure you're not getting another copy? It doesn't reflect well on you to your peers."

"'X-COM' is a very... engrossing game." Nakami fidgeted. "I'm not the only one who said he was going to play one more mission and then stopped when he saw the sun come up."

Takaji nodded. "I know. I know. It's a good game, and it received very high reviews in all the publications. I've had staffers up all night playing 'Civilization,' so I can kind of relate to how that happens. But you have to see how that would reflect poorly on you."

Nakami looked away. "If you don't agree with what I'm doing, why should you care when I'm not doing it well?"

"You were playing a game about killing aliens with a plasma rifle, chief among them, little guys that look like Fraal! There was a rumor going around that you'd completely lost it, that you'd gone crazy with hatred for your own species and were obsessed with acting out killing us. A couple people thought we should move you up to a high-priority threat before you did something crazy. I talked them down though." Takaji put his hand out on the table as a show of friendship. "I know why you like that game so much and that wasn't the reason."

Nakami looked down at the extended hand, then back up at Takaji. "And why is that?"

"Because, in the game, there's a clear danger to the people of Earth, and you can directly do something to stop it. Humankind is threatened and you can save them." He nodded slowly. "It's the same reason you started your little project, the same reason you came to Japan. You want to be able to help, you want to be able to DO something." He shrugged and spread his arms. "You, every member of the Iltan, you see what we're doing, and you see all the problems in the world and say we're not doing anything to solve them, so you want to come in and change everything around rather than realizing it'll be all right."

"I came here because someone spotted Isci ba Fan, and he's close to entering our world at full strength. I suppose you're going to tell me that that is going to be all right?"

Takaji sat bolt-upright. "Isci ba Fan? Really? For really really reals?" He slid back into his normal posture. "Come on, you know as well as I do that Isci ba Fan is a boogeyman meant to scare children into obeying their parents. If you were talking about Master Pharaoh 90, though, then it is going to be all right. Sailor Moon's going to kill it. Always does."

"So, Sailor Moon's on your payroll too, then? Am I the only one in Japan who isn't a member of your group?" Nakami thought about Hotaru, talking about that whole Moon kingdom, how she wasn't worthy to be a part of it.

"What? No," Takaji waved a hand dismissively. "Sailor Moon doesn't know I know a thing about her. She thinks she's waging war on the forces of evil in total secrecy. Thinks she's some kind of queen, too."

"Princess."

"Whatever, not like it matters. Cosimir knows where she actually learned magic, point is, she knows it. And when monsters and demons and freaks show up she's equipped to deal with them far more quickly and quietly than the government. She hasn't let us down yet, and the cleanup is far less of a hassle and the secrets easier to keep secret when a magical girl does it than if we had to train and arm an SDF division to do it."

"So you're just going to ask a little girl to do your work for you because it's easier?"

"No, I'm not going to ask her anything. She's doing it because she knows she has to. I've never even spoken to her, most I did was mail her and her team some replacement equipment a year or so ago. They don't even know who it came from." He chuckled. "I have my hands pretty full as the director of the NPA. As a member of the Ahotti, I don't do all that much. Because I know that meddling in something makes it worse."

"I thought you were at least going to use your position of power to advance some kind of agenda, that might conceivably be defensible. You're infiltrating and subverting the highest levels of government in order to do nothing? To sit around and let others deal with your problems?" Nakami shook his head.

"We don't do 'nothing.' We go where we are needed to smooth over problems. It only seems like 'nothing' to you because you're frenzied to do everything possible. Here, I'll tell you a story.

"So, herewhile back, there was this pair of aliens that came to Tokyo -- from some planet I never heard of, wasn't in the database -- and they were summoning monsters, gathering up energy for this tree that was their mother, or their god, or something, I don't know which. So instead of getting a bunch of people with flamethrowers together, like you would have done, we kept our hands off and let Sailor Moon do it. She cleared the alien's bolthole out with zero fatalities, not even killing the two aliens. In fact they see the error of their ways, because that is just the kind of gal Sailor Moon is, and they agree peacefully and willingly to leave the planet and find another place to plant their super-tree."

He put his arm on the back of his chair and leaned back. "Of course, they got as far as Mars before they realized they weren't getting anywhere without a faster-than-light drive. They signalled the mothership to ask us if we had one, which of course we don't, and their little tree wouldn't grow on Martian soil. So they came back here to Tokyo, intending to blend in instead of suck energy. We had to cut them a few checks until they could get on their feet, and come over a few times early on to remind them not to let on they were aliens, but we haven't heard a peep from them in months now, they've integrated. The tree's alive, the aliens are happy, Sailor Moon thwarted evil, she's happy, almost nobody knows the two are aliens, I'm happy. Everyone's happy. If I had sent in men with flamethrowers, half of them would be dissolved by space-spores, the entire building would be in ruins, everyone would know there was a giant space-tree wrapped around it, and if the aliens weren't dead they'd be swearing revenge. I came in when I had to, since Sailor Moon can't give aliens fake birth certificates, but even then I did as little as possible, and everything... worked... out."

"And that's your plan. An alien psionic demon as old as the Pyramids is coming and you're going to sit here and say 'everything's going to be fine, someone else will take care of it?' You'll do NOTHING rather than make a fuss?"

"Well, let's look at your track record, shall we? Spokane, Washington? How many city blocks did they have to evacuate? How many millions of dollars of property damage did you cause? How long was CNN speculating on what happened? Yeah, looks like your 'run in and muck everything up' policy works so well. You meddled, you had to stick your head in, get your agents all over it, and you made it worse. That warlock would never have done anything if he didn't think you were after him."

"Oh, you're right. We can't have any property damage, can we." Nakami threaded his fingers together and grimaced. "But an adolescent child risking her life against soul-sucking demon creatures, that's okay. Little girls who think they need to kill themselves because they're the mass murderers of a moon kingdom, that, that's totally acceptable to you, isn't it? As long as they die quietly and don't make a big fuss." He shook his head in angered disbelief.

"Sailor... who is that, Saturn? Pluto? The Big Silencer? The one you're talking about. What do you want me to say to her? I don't know what the hell Sailor Senshi go through. Everything in human psychology would be built on the premise that she didn't have magic powers, it's not like I can send her to a therapist. Anything I say is just as likely to cause damage as help." He shrugged. "And who's to say she's not the mass murderer of the moon? Neither of us were alive back then, we can't say there wasn't a moon kingdom. Maybe the records were lost. She could have a very good reason to kill herself, and if she can make planets blow up, or whatever, I'd rather kill herself now than have me talk her out of it and then blow up the planet in two years when she goes through a bad breakup." 

Nakami blinked in disbelief. "There's no way. There is no way that you just seriously suggested to me that it would be fine for a little girl to kill herself."

"If she can kill everyone else on Earth? Gee, let me think." He adopted his mocking-contemplation pose again. "Of COURSE it is! This is your entire problem. You think you see someone drowning, you'll knock a thousand people off the boat to get back to him. And most of the time, it turns out the person can swim."

"Whereas you'll cheerily watch someone drown rather than inconvenience yourself. Hope that someone else will save them."

"Oh, what do you want me to do, run up and punch Queen Beryllium in the mouth? All we could do would be to send out personnel to deal with it. The ones in the miniskirts perform better than the ones in uniforms, because they were born to do it, and we're not impeding them. I don't see how you have any moral superiority when all you do all day is send other people out to do your work."

"Because my agents signed up for the job, they aren't picked by magic princess lottery!"

"Oh like hell, those people never know what they're signing up for until three months in. The only thing you could possibly object to about the arrangement is that I don't give them paychecks, but from what I hear you don't have a problem with that either..." Takaji paused and sat upright in his chair, he smiled as if he was just let in on a joke. "That's what you came down here for, isn't it? You wouldn't come down to see Isci ba Fan, you'd be running the other way and screaming. You thought you could recruit a Sailor Senshi like she was just a truck-stop hick who'd seen a boogum, didn't you? Get a pretty mini-skirted planet all to yourself, shooting lightning bolts and lasers on your orders, so you could justify in your own values scheme how it was okay for her to do what you couldn't?"

"No." Nakami's tone was icy and not the slightest bit embarrassed. "I came down here because there was someone who could help keep the world safe. I came down to say I'm willing to give her all the help I can provide to do it. I don't expect you'd understand, because you obviously wouldn't know compassion if it crawled up your ass."

"Yeah, real cute. Hey everybody, let's all try compassion! Then it can be just like when the Iltan party felt real, real sorry for those poor toga-clad humans in Greece and decided we should come down and show them how all of our neat technology and mindwalking worked. That just worked so well."

Nakami threw his hands in the air. "HOW did I know this conversation was going to end up being about Atlantis!"

∙ ∙ ∙

"And they all saw it, too! They told me the Sailor Senshi went in to save them, before I knew they were the Sailor Senshi, and then Kirin-chan and her mama came right up next to the boat! But the next time I brought it up, Usa-ko acted like she didn't know what I was talking about. She said I had heatstroke and I dreamed the whole thing, and dinosaurs weren't real any more. But aliens from the future, she thinks that's totally normal."

Hotaru giggled softly, not nearly hard enough to start a coughing fit.

"Usa-ko can really be a knucklehead some times..." Chibi-Usa sighed and leaned back on her palms, looking up at the sky. Ami had made the two of them leave the room when she got out her travel-size soldering iron, so they wouldn't inhale any fumes; now Hotaru and Chibi-Usa were sitting outside, watching the trees. Hotaru occasionally startled at the sight of something moving, but it was never a policeman come to take her in, and Chibi-Usa went on unworried. "...but she's not all bad. She's just a klutz. She has a good heart."

"I know she does. You both do." Hotaru recalled that she'd devoured one of their hearts for a closer look and shuddered.

Chibi-Usa flipped herself over so her chin was resting in her hand, and set the other hand on Hotaru's leg. "It's going to be okay, Hotaru-chan. You don't need to be afraid any more, I'm here for you."

Hotaru put her hand on Chibi-Usa's and put on a smile that looked like it hurt too much to maintain for more than a couple seconds. "I... I know you are."

"Then why are you so sad? It... it really hurts me to see how sad you are. I want to see you be happy."

Hotaru drew her knees up to her face and wrapped her arms around them. "Please... don't. I'll, I'll, I'll be fine, really. Just like you said. Don't worry about it." It was the most transparent lie she had ever told in her entire life.

"Hotaru-chan, please! You don't have to be sad. You're with people who love you now, not just me, all of us! Ami-chan is in there finding a way to make the Pharaoh go away forever, and nobody's smarter than her. Nobody will be trying to hurt you any more. You can come and live with me and Usa-ko, we'll be like sisters!" Chibi-Usa smiled warmly. "I'd love for you to be my sister, Hotaru-chan."

Hotaru closed her eyes and shook her head. "No, no, no no no... No, you wouldn't!" She held her hands to her temples, trying to keep pure self-loathing from spilling out. "You don't want me to be your sister. I'd do nothing but hurt you and make you worry. You don't want me to be your friend."

"That's not true, Hotaru! I want to be your friend, we all do. We love you."

"I know, I know!" she choked out, then paused a moment to regain her voice. "You want the best for me, you love me, because you're so, you're... you're the most wonderful person I've ever met."

"Why does that makes you sad?" said Chibi-Usa, scared and confused.

"Because I don't deserve you! I'm bad, I'm bad and I'll just hurt you. You'll keep caring about me and the only thing I'll do is make you sad and let you down. Every time. I'm evil, nobody should love me. It will just come back to hurt them."

"Nooo... no, Hotaru-chan, you're not evil! You could never be evil." Chibi-Usa was on the verge of tears now herself. "Of course you should be loved. I love you."

"My father loved me. and, and... and Kaori..." Hotaru swallowed. "...I think she loved me too. Or she could have. And they're dead. I killed them. You loved me and I, I, for God's sake I ate your soul! I've done horrible things to everyone close to me. You shouldn't have to go through it again."

"You didn't do any of those things!" Chibi-Usa grabbed her arm and clutched it tight, just so Hotaru could feel she was here for her, rocked back and forth. "It was somebody else using you. It's their fault, not yours. I know how scary it is. It happened to me, too."

Hotaru hesitated, decided she couldn't bear to pry Chibi-Usa off of her, and ended up patting her on the arm instead.

"Someone twisted me around and made me forget everyone who loved me. My mama, my papa, all of my friends." Chibi-Usa's voice was a whisper. "He made me hate everybody, and he had me do awful things to the people I loved. And after it was over, and I got better, I... I was really scared for a long time. I was afraid of myself. I thought I'd hurt my family. I just wished everyone would go away."

"...what happened?"

Chibi-Usa nodded and came in closer, let go of Hotaru's arm to lay a hand across her shoulder. "Everyone wanted me to get better, but it wasn't the kind of thing they could do with magic. It wasn't like I was possessed or I broke my leg. I had to go to a hospital. Mama said it was 'starlight honeymoon inpatient therapy'."

"You went to a mental hospital?" Hotaru thought of the times her teachers and principals had suggested her father send her to the hospital, and how hard he'd fought the idea. They thought she was schizophrenic then. He probably didn't want them to find out she wasn't.

Chibi-Usa nodded. "For six months! They said I could have been there a lot longer, but it seemed like a long time to me. And, it took me a while, but eventually, I learned that it wasn't my fault, that if someone used me for evil, that I wasn't evil. And that everyone loved me just as much as they did before." She closed her eyes and recited "'No matter what happens, nobody can decide who you are but you,'" as if it was something she'd repeated often.

"I... had no idea."

"That's because I never told anybody. Usa-ko, Mamo-kun, Ami-chan, everybody here just knows I went away for a while. Only Mama and Papa know. And you. I... wanted you to know you're not alone, Hotaru-chan. It's scary, but... maybe, we can be scared together."

Hotaru put her arm around Chibi-Usa. "Thank you, Usa-chan. That... helps." It did, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Even without the Mistress Nine, she would be a horrifying mass-murderer, that was a part of her soul. That was nobody else's doing, it was her identity.

But for now it was good to be with a friend who knew what she was going through, to know in at least this she wasn't alone. Even though it hurt as well, it was worth it. They leaned their heads on each other and stared, wordlessly, at the setting sun.

∙ ∙ ∙

The first set of tire tracks led to another, and another, and another. They all led off in different directions, but all came from the same path, and the three Senshi tracked it back to its source. The passageway was interrupted, by a pit, two or three meters deep, at the bottom of which were guide rails and a toothed track leading off to the left. A control panel was set into the wall on their side of the pit, but none of the buttons seemed to work. The left wall was a shuttered door with a featureless black star painted on it, it stopped short above the tracks and left a gap about 25 cm tall. A dim yellow light could be seen coming from the other side.

"Well, looks like this is it," said Sailor Jupiter, her tone hushed to minimize the echo. "Whoever our mystery driver is, this is where he came from."

"She came from," Mars corrected, and shone her light on the door again. "That's the Death Busters star, and whoever came out of there was power-sliding her car around corners in dim lighting, in narrow underground tunnels, doing at least a hundred kilometers an hour. Either these were left by Eudial, or there are two of them and I am never going to ride in a car again until I know both of them are dead."

"Venus Love-Me Chain," said Sailor Venus, and wrapped it around one of her hands to keep it at the ready. "This could be what we came here for, we'll have to be careful."

"Maybe not, though." Jupiter cradled her light between her ear and shoulder and drew on her makeshift map to indicate where they were now. "All the Witches 5 are dead, right? It's just the big Pharaoh, and, apparently, the lizard people. If neither of them drive a car, they could have just abandoned the garage."

"That's true too. But it's the only set of tracks we found, we need to check it out." She knelt over the edge, spied the safety ladder mounted in the wall, and re-positioned herself to climb down it. "Just get close enough to tell if anything's going on, then get out without being seen." She touched down on the ground and extended a hand to help Mars descend, then Jupiter.

"My feet are freezing," remarked Jupiter, and she wiggled her toes. Mars handed her the flashlight she was holding and turned around, and Jupiter tied it into the bow on her back. "I mean, I know we don't want to be running in high heels, but maybe next time when we go to get supplies we should buy some boots. Or at least socks."

"Hey, give me a break, I don't do this very often!"

"I wonder..." Mars put her finger on her chin. "If you put on a new pair of shoes, and then you un-transform, what happens to them? You can't really wear two layers of shoes like you can clothes."

"I'm totally going to try that out as soon as this is all over." Jupiter knelt down to crawl under the door, then crept under it on her elbows, streaking the front of her fuku with dust. She quickly stood on the other side, looked around for any lizards, daimons, or other baddies, and gestured for Venus and Mars to come in.

"Be careful, Jupiter!" said Venus as she helped her to her feet. "You might end up with... whoa."

"I know, right?"

Unlike in the rest of the tunnels, the sodium lights overhead were still functional, bathing the room in yellow light. There was nothing else on the walls or ceiling, and the guide-rails in the trench they stood in extended far, far down to the opposite end of the room, hundreds of meters away, ending at what looked like a loading dock or cargo area. Nobody else could be seen.

"How much do you think this cost?" asked Jupiter. "This whole tunnel, for one... what do you call those..."

"Sideways elevator thing?" Mars added.

"Whatever. A big cargo truck mover thingy. Somebody had to dig this tunnel, that's millions of yen, then they had to lay the track and install the lights and load up the engine, and all that costs money. And I can't see any use for this thing other than moving Eudial's car a couple hundred meters through that little garage door. It's not like they're taking deliveries or unloading trucks in the secret underground tunnels."

Venus nodded, glancing at the walls as they walked. "And even if they are, wouldn't it be smarter to just drive through this little tunnel and put their deliveries in the car? I mean, a tunnel's still expensive, but why bother with a cargo-lifter at all? I mean, I can think of a lot better ways to spend the money than this. I guess it's like they say, 'the cruel and their money are soon parted.'"

"Maybe that was the point," said Mars. "Maybe they had so much money they couldn't spend it fast enough. Like they only bought this after all the Death Busters had widescreen TVs and solid gold daimon-makers."

"Ooh! I know!" said Venus. "They were working for a school, so they had to spend all their money on this at the end of the year so they could keep their budget." She looked at Mars and Jupiter's twin expressions of incomprehension. "Hey, if you knew anyone who worked for a university that would be hilarious."

"I'll tell you something, though," said Jupiter after a few seconds. "If I was a Death Buster, I wouldn't even bother sending out daimons for us to destroy. I'd just buy the Pure Heart Crystals off of people, skip the middleman."

Venus giggled. "Do you have money troubles? Bad credit? No credit? Upside-down on your house? Upside-down IN your house? Don't file for bankruptcy -- sell us your heart crystal! Our Witches are standing by to--"

Mars silenced Venus with a finger over her lips and a "Ssh!" then pointed upward, a gesture which for reasons she wasn't clear on meant 'listen closely.'

It took a couple seconds but soon Venus heard what Mars did, a faint string of conversation over the dull un-echo of an empty concrete room. Two people were talking, men, at a conversational and informal tone. As they silently crept forward, they could soon pick out the words:

"...and his shit's still all over the place as he's saying this, right?"

"Right."

"So there's little plastic Gundams and Sakuras and Sailor Moons all over, and hand to God they are actually staring at me while he's lecturing me about how we don't have room in the apartment for my stuff, and he's going on and on about how it's unfair to him and he pays his half of the rent and he should have a say and blah blah blah, bunch of whiny crap."

"So he's saying that little models of imaginary characters are okay, and little models of fighter jets aren't?"

"I'm not even to the best part. I started trying to tell him what you just said, but of course all he wants to do is whine and yell, so I say 'screw it, do whatever' and I pack up my little planes and put 'em in a box. I didn't want to fight him, he's never gonna be moved by anything, and it's not like I'm gonna die if I'm not surrounded by them like he is. But apparently he sees me staring at his crap during this conversation, and he gets it into his head that I am going to, like, get revenge on his little models."

"Like Card Captor Sakura killed your family and now you're out for vengeance."

"Like I'm going to wreck his stuff because, apparently, I'm just as petty as he is and I'm just out to 'GET' him. So the next day, I wake up, and first thing I see is one of those little plastic bastards staring me in the face. And I go to throw it out of the way and he grabs it, because he's been standing there watching me sleep for who knows how long, and he shakes it at me and says -- you ready for this?"

"I'm ready."

"He says 'I know you're thinking you can get at me by striking at my fiiigures. I did this to let you know that even when I'm not here, Sailor V will be watching you. V-chan goes to those in need and she alllways stops evildoers.'"

"Wow. That's just... Wow."

"I seriously didn't have a comeback. It was so stupid my brain shut off for a minute there. His plastic Sailor V is going to stop me from plastic-figure sabotage. What kind of thought process goes into that?"

"That's really messed up. You need to find a new roommate, dude."

At this point the three Senshi had reached the end of the trench, standing next to the ladder on the movable platform, and Mars had to cover her mouth with both hands to contain her laughter. "Great," Jupiter muttered, "now somebody like that is going to be making his little plastic Jupiter and his little plastic Venus kiss each other all night, I just know it."

"We saved a life with that kiss! I think it's better that he be thinking of us as little plastic lesbians than he get hit by a train."

"Oh, yeah..." said Jupiter, "just... not very much better."

"Hey, is there someone there?" came the man's voice, moving closer to them. "Nobody's supposed to be down here!"

Venus looked around, saw she couldn't hide beneath the platform, and let a length of the Love-Me Chain uncoil from around her hand. Shortly, a man came peeking over the edge, then another, the two of them wearing policeman's uniforms and holding flashlights but taking no offensive action. The one on the left looked shocked and muttered "Oh, you have got to be yanking me..."

"Hello, officers!" said Mars in between giggles. "We came by because we heard reports of... plastic figure sabotage!" Then all three of them broke out in laughter.

∙ ∙ ∙

The four agents of the Hoffmann Institute, their interrogations over, were sent to the holding cells to "cool off." Most of the cells were filled with students of the Mugen Academy, loudly protesting their innocence. Philip and Bill were placed in a cell with two other men, Donna and Nadine were by themselves. The fact they were placed together led them to believe the cells were probably bugged and the authorities listening for incriminating evidence. Since most of the evidence they were looking for didn't exist, the agents weren't very worried. They didn't need to talk about how they were going to escape, as they had a procedure in place; they had no idea what they were going to do after that and couldn't really compromise their plan there.

Donna paced back and forth in her cell, Nadine stared off into the corner looking morose. Bill and Philip leaned against the back wall, arms crossed, patiently waiting for their cellmate to stop shuffling his feet and nervously glancing between them to finally get the courage to ask them whatever he was going to ask them. He was, like most of the inmates there, a clean-cut frightened young man of about eighteen; there was a red splotch that looked like a recent burn on the right side of his face and a Band-Aid on his forehead and cheek. After ten minutes of waiting, he finally edged his way over to Bill, nervously glancing at his teammate. "Do, do you speaking English?" he asked with the same inflection a 17-year-old asks a clerk for a box of condoms.

Bill arched an eye to Philip, who shook his head slightly, Bill then responded with a definite "Nyet."

"I speak Japanese, though," Philip added. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

"Oh!" The man edged closer to Philip, and now gave a suspicious glance back at Bill. "I, I just wanted to ask you, what happened. To get you arrested, I mean."

"Why would that be an embarrassing question to ask? I should be the one ashamed of that, not you."

"No, it's not that... I'm really sorry, but you, you're, and I..."

"You're not afraid of me because I'm black." He shifted from one foot to the other. "You are afraid of how I look though. Probably because I look like a college professor and you're a college student who's afraid of his superiors knowing he's in jail. I wouldn't worry about your reputation, though. I know ruining the names of Academy students is the last thing on my mind." He extended his hand for a handshake, frowned, and then bowed. "My name is Professor James. I came here to teach linguistics at the Mugen Academy."

"So then, we're here for the same reason?"

"I don't know. Professor Zolstakov, Professor Kimberly, Professor Leslie, and I heard of the incident on Thursday, but we couldn't get any details or contact any of the administration. We thought when they arrested us that we were going to be deported, as our work visas wouldn't be valid any longer. But the way they've been acting, it seems like they think we're part of something much bigger. I assume they have the same mistaken impression about you?"

The student nodded. "All of us here, they keep talking like we're in a crazy cult or something, like we're members of this big evil organization. They keep asking me to confess, to name my accomplices, but when I tell them I don't have any and don't know what I'm confessing to, they just start all over again!"

"That's what we've been through." Philip sighed. "They take people like you and I, rational, law-abiding citizens or resident aliens, and take us out of our homes like drug dealers or felons, drag us in here without even telling us what we're charged with... It's shameful."

"They took you out of your home? Just like that?"

"Just like that. In the middle of lunch."

"No, I mean... they didn't do anything before that? Nothing strange?"

Philip gasped. "You mean, your face, they did that to you?"

"No!" said the man, who looked around and moved in closer, whispering conspiratorially. "I mean, maybe. That's the thing: I don't know. I got to talk to a few other students, and... have you been having, well, blackouts lately?"

Philip stroked his chin. "Now that you mention it... Professor Zolstakov had mentioned something like that... I thought it was the alcohol." The two of them slowly looked over at Bill, who was slapping out the drum solo from 'Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida' on his thighs. "Seventeenth-century Russian lit. Lots of vodka."

"No, see, I don't think it was booze. Because, I don't know if it's everyone, but everyone I talked to?" The man pointed downward and sat on the floor, and Philip followed, leaning in for at least some small measure more privacy. "We've been losing some pretty long tracks of time over the past few days. I lost like twelve hours on Wednesday night, I remember that I'd finally got the courage to ask Tamiko-san out on a date, we were getting out of the cab in front of the Takarazuka theater... and then, I was waking up, face down on the ground outside of what used to be Mugen, and it was morning, and there were ambulances and cops everywhere."

"My goodness! Was your friend Tamiko-san OK?"

"She was there too! They took us all to the hospital, but they wanted her to stay, they said she had internal injuries. They discharged me after they figured out I had nothing broken, but, but I saw other people, students, who were... in a lot worse condition."

"And none of them knew how they got injured?"

"Nobody! At first I thought I was going insane, and they did too, but once we started to realize it happened to all of us, we wondered if there was some kind of gas leak, or, or some chemical we got exposed to at school... then yesterday I was coming in to see Tamiko, and we were talking with this other kid in the room about what could have happened, and it did again! All of us blacked out, and when we came to, we're locked in a supply closet with like ten other people, we had to wait in there a few more hours until someone on the other side opened it because someone put an ice machine in front of the door. And I had this burn on my face, and Tamiko had a broken nose and a broken thumb. And nobody in there knew what had happened."

"So the same thing must have happened at the hospital, then. Whatever gas leak or chemical spill, they were using it at the hospital."

"No, that's just it! It was only the Mugen students there that were affected, nobody else! And other students, who weren't at the hospital, they all blacked out at the same time where-ever they were. And they woke up in weird places with strange, unexplained injuries. Tamiko told me her sister was shot in the leg!"

"And they did something to all the students there, and now you're having blackouts." The man nodded. "How do you think they do it? Something in the food, the water?"

"I have a theory. Have you ever heard, what they say... that at night at the Mugen academy they have secret classes? Secret classes where they teach new witches in the dark arts?"

"People had mentioned it when I was transferring here, but I thought it was just a rumor. I didn't see any witch classes, but come to think of it they kept me out of a lot of faculty meetings..."

"What if it's real, man! What if the rumors are right? I mean, I mean it makes sense that witches have to learn how to be witches, they have to have a witch school somewhere. And we don't know they're there, we can't do magic, they wouldn't care about what happened to us. Maybe they cast a spell on all of us to do their evil bidding, and it keeps kicking in. They made us blow up the school and then they made us fight each other. Probably for fun."

"Why would they make you blow up the school, though? That's where they go to school, too."

The man scratched his head. "Maybe February is when finals are for witches and they wanted to get out of it?" He sighed. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

"Oh no, I think your theory matches up with a lot of my own independent observations. Dr. Tomoe was certainly involved in the dark arts, I was surprised nobody else noticed."

"Yes! I thought I was the only one! You look at his face, and sometimes it's normal, and then you look at him out of the corner of your eye his face is all black, and his glasses are shining no matter what light they're in and his mouth is like this backlit cherry-red. But you look straight at him and he looks almost fine, but even when he's normal, he's got some kind of crazy arcane seal on his glasses, and his face is always a bit dimmer than the rest of the room. He's probably the head witch! Or warlock. And Professor Arimura, there's no way she just invented all that stuff she claimed to, it was witchcraft! When she vanished and they said she died in a car crash, but they never had a body and they never had a funeral? I bet it was because she faked her death and she was going off to be a full-time witch!" The man paused. "You said some other professors were with you... do you know if they're okay? Or do you think they..."

"Professors Leslie and Kimberly? No, they're okay. Both of them are very opposed to witches in general. I don't think anybody has to worry about them." Philip stood up, nodded at Bill, and motioned as if he was flicking an imaginary lighter, the signal that he was done and it was time for their horrible escape plan.

Bill nodded, stood straight up, and cleared his throat.

∙ ∙ ∙

"Here it is," said Ami with a florid gesture towards the object on the table. and the pile of half-disassembled devices around it. She lifted off her safety goggles and wiped underneath her eyes. "One television, one four-slice toaster, one AM radio, one gravitic reverberator, two electron beacons, a couple of helium-5 cores, and a little solder, equals one rotating magnetic resonance disruptor."

"That's it?" asked Chibi-Usa.

"That's it," confirmed Ami.

"It looks kind of like a hot dog cooker. A, what are those things called, a rotisserie," added Artemis.

It did.

Ami took off her goggles and wiped off the lenses on her shirt. "It was kind of fun to put together, in all honesty. Like an electronics scavenger hunt. And I know a lot more about it having put it together than if I'd just read the documentation."

"And it can stop the Pharaoh?"

"No, it can't," said Hotaru.

"No, it can't," said Ami. "Not permanently. I'd have to get a lot more materials to scale it up to make a permanent solution -- probably require ten or twenty times more power, too. Manufacturing time would be a lot longer. And, then we'd have to find out how to seal the Pharaoh and not seal our powers. But this is still useful, because from what Hotaru said, overloading one of these is what cut off the Pharaoh the first time, and turned all magic off for a few days."

"And it turned him off, too, right? Since there weren't any daimon attacks and we all got our powers back a little before they showed up again, that means he couldn't do anything either?"

"Exactly it, Chibi-Usa-chan. What it does is prevents entities from straddling across dimensions, and the Pharaoh is in a dimension other than our own, so it can't affect the world until the pulse wears off. If we overload another one of these, we can keep it out for another couple of days. And if I can get access to some more parts I could manufacture as many of these as we wanted."

"Ohh... And so every couple days you blow one up, and then you can take as long as you want to build the big one? Is that right? Because that's actually pretty cool!"

Ami blushed. "It is cool, isn't it? I feel cool. I wonder if this is what idols and rock stars feel like." She set her goggles down and shook her arms. "It feels good to put one in the win column for science. I mean, I know we're all working together, we're all a team, but usually everything comes down to destiny. If this works, not only will we defeat evil, but we'll do it in a way we can explain and reproduce. Those Hoffmann people, they didn't say how they overloaded the device, right?"

Hotaru shook her head. "They just said it blew up. We mostly talked about what happened to me... I think you should ask Bill, I think he did it."

"That's funny, I actually have a message for him." She searched the table for the scrap of paper she'd written it down on. "A man called to say that, he was returning his call, and 'the package will be ready tomorrow at eight-thirty PM, at Haneda Airport, runway F, and it doesn't matter if Bill picks it up or not because they're still even.' He didn't leave a name, or say what the package was. Bill left his cellular phone here, the man called it, said that, and hung up."

"It wasn't Bill's. The phone was Nadine's, but she always forgot to take it with her."

Luna looked up, then back at Artemis. "Oh, do we still have the Saturn watch?"

Artemis thought. "Oh, right, yeah. Should be still in the box, fourth from the left."

Luna nodded. "Hotaru-chan, there's something that we need to give you, now that we know you're a Sailor Senshi." She shifted back and forth a couple times, then sprang forward into a backflip, leaving a trail of golden sparkles behind her. When she landed, there was a loop of gold glitter hanging in the air over her, and a purple watch underneath her, she stepped back to let Hotaru pick it up. "This is your communicator watch, with it you can stay in touch with all of the Sailor Senshi at all times. All of the Senshi have them." Luna looked up at Hotaru, hopeful that it'd make her feel just a little like she was part of a group.

Saturn turned it over in her hand. It looked like a purple dome, embossed with a yellow star and crescent moon design. She had to press a button on the side to pop it open, revealing the actual timepiece and the video screen set into the top half. The band was cheap yellow rubber and seemed oddly out of place as she slipped it on her wrist. She held it out in front of her face, subconsciously squaring her jaw like Dick Tracey, and flipped it open and shut a few times.

"Open it up to use the video, or keep it closed to do audio-only," said Artemis, rattling off a list of features. "There's a hole on the underside you poke with a pin to change the frequency, but you shouldn't need to, we all use the default. Press in the moon symbol to send out a general distress signal, turn the knob around the watch face to pick your recipient, and... Oh, remember to take it off before you transform if you think you'll need to use it, because it will vanish with the rest of your clothes. That's everything, right?"

"It runs on three 'CR2016' batteries, and those are expensive, so don't run them out by using the video when you don't need it. Well, you can use it a couple times to see what it's like." Hotaru, Ami and Chibi-Usa's watches all began to flash and beep softly, Ami and Chibi-Usa quickly tapped them and held them to their ears. "There, now, touch the moon or flip it open to answer that."

Hotaru flicked the communicator open, and while her brain was considering whether she should answer with 'Hotaru speaking' or 'Saturn here,' her lips responded with a "Y'ello?"

"Hotaru? Did you have one of these?" Sailor Moon's face on the tiny viewscreen looked momentarily confused, and her hair was let down. "Oh, listen, uh, we found out they took the people to the police headquarters in Kasumigaseki, and we're there right now, but it looks weird, I think there's dai-- okay, there are daimons down here, lots of them, we need some help!"

"I know where that is... it'll take us ten minutes, do you think you can last that long? Sailor Moon, do you..."

The image on the viewscreen spun around, showing the sky and the parking lot twirling about, and Sailor Moon's voice could faintly be heard calling "Moon Spiral Heart Attack!"

"...that's a no." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Okay, we need to get going now, I don't remember if there's a bus we can use and Hotaru can't run that long."

"You won't either." A pale man in black stepped through the doorway, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. Hotaru had seen this one before, he was the one who shot her and Donna. From what Ami and Minako had said, his name was Agent Waldorf. "Going to have to stop you there, Mizuno Ami." He grabbed her arm in his big clammy hand and yanked, bringing the two of them together next to Ami's workbench table. "Sailor Moon will be able to handle herself up there, the two of us are going on a trip while your reinforcements are otherwise occupied, and if I don't take this chance who knows how long I'll be waiting outside for another time when I won't be ganged up on."

"Let her go!" shouted Chibi-Usa.

"Let her go or you'll do what, 'Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity'? You've never done anything but be a burden in a fight and you know it. Nobody's ever calling on Sailor Chibi-Moon to save their bacon. Oh, yes, you killed a few daimons, but how long did it take you, and how long does it take anyone else? Don't threaten me when you can't back it up." He turned to regard Hotaru. "And you... you stay the hell where you are, you little witch. I don't need to see in your head to snap those little legs like dry twigs, and I will if you try anything funny. You got your widget, now I need to use her for a SONOFAWHORE!"

Waldorf shouted in pain and let Ami go, grabbing at the hot soldering iron she'd jammed deep into his thigh. The iron fell to the floor, trailing wisps of darkness, but he was disabled long enough for three hands to go for their transformation foci and three sets of magic words to be invoked. Chibi-Usa could see both of the others as she turned into Chibi-Moon, and she saw the man in black reaching for his gun in slow motion. Ami's clothes vanished, her skin becoming a glowing white iridescence, the only features visible her eyes and face. She spun on her tiptoe like a ballerina, swung her transformation wand in a graceful arc that left a stream of translucent blue ribbon. The ribbon wrapped around her, ensconced and protected her, and with a pulse like a ripple spreading outward in a pond it became a sailor fuku, and Ami became Sailor Mercury.

Glowing, flashing lights came from Hotaru's transformation as well, but they came from around her, not herself. Her skin was its normal tone, her plain black shirt and pants still on even as she levitated off the ground and her hair spread outward as if she was weightless. There was a brief, brilliant crescent, a flash of steel striking her arm, and her shirtsleeve was gone and an elbow-length white glove in its place. Another flash, a phantom blade striking her other arm, produced the same result. Her legs were struck one after the other, so rapid they were almost simultaneous, and she was now wearing knee-high purple boots. Then the phantom blade went up her torso, a long, spiral cut that left her sailor fuku and many-pointed gem behind but didn't cut away anything to show it. The last stroke clearly went all the way through her neck, but instead of slicing her head from her shoulders it left behind a dark purple choker, and a tiara and earrings appeared to go with it. The long, flashing path of the cut ended at the head of the Silence Glaive that was now in Hotaru's hand.

"'In the name of the moon of the future, you'll punish me'?" Waldorf growled, responding to something Chibi-Moon hadn't said yet. "With what? Your useless pink hearts? You're so inept it's embarrassing. Your mother probably sent you back here because she was ashamed to be seen with you."

"You don't know anything!" Chibi-Moon stomped her feet and balled her hands into fists. "I'm a lady like Mama, and I'm gonna be a pretty soldier like her too!"

Hotaru grabbed the haft of the Glaive, cradled it under her arm and pointed the bottom of it at Agent Waldorf, the head of the blade dug into the wall behind her. She hesitated, wondering if she'd break the machine if she fired, and slowly crept to the side to get a line of fire that didn't go over the work table. Mercury had no such worry, and with a cry of "Shine Aqua Illusion!" she spun about, gathering a mass of freezing magical water in her hands, and discharged it in a thick stream toward Waldorf's chest. He turned his head, watched her invocation with what could have been bemusement, and let the stream of water pass harmlessly through his body and leave a patch of ice on the wall and floor behind him.

"Thank you for letting me know that was coming. It might have hurt otherwise. I suppose that's the difference between book smarts and street smarts, huh? You'll do better when there's someone around to give you some guidance, oh yes, yes I am implying exactly the thing that you're thinking. Yes, just like Endymion, and whoever the hell Black Lady was. Oh, it was her?"

Waldorf turned around to regard Chibi-Moon, just in time to catch a sparkling stream of pink hearts in the stomach. He shook his head. "Tsk, tsk. You know I don't even have to defend against this, right? Looks like the only time you're worthwhile is when nobody loves you, isn't it?"

"Saturn Silencer!"

A directed pulse of ultrasonic energy, a heat distortion moving at the speed of a bullet, streaked from the end of her weapon to Waldorf's left shoulder. He crashed through the thin paper wall behind him, rolling end over end, losing his hat and glasses, ending up on the grass with his ass in the air. "Okay. So you can be a decoy too. That's so much better."

Mercury leaned through the hole in the wall, guessing he couldn't defend against an attack he didn't see coming, and fired off another Shine Aqua Illusion before he could right himself. The freezing blast hit him in the small of his back, caking his backside in frost and causing him to growl in pain. He rolled forward, revealing a lumpy, misshapen bald head and milky-white eyes, and his arms darted around at his sides to find his hat and his gun without looking away from the Sailor Senshi.

"What do you want with me?" Mercury asked. Hotaru ran to the doorway, aimed the Glaive at his head, careful the blade was nowhere near Chibi-Moon.

"You know, that hurts like an absolute mother..." His left hand found his hat and slid it back on, tilted sideways. The ice fell from his back, crunching softly against the grass, trailed by little wisps of onyx-black smoke. "I was fair, I waited for you to finish your widget. Sailor Moon's turn with you is over, now it's my turn. You know she'll be fine without you, like you said, she's got destiny to solve her problems."

"Am-- Sailor Mercury isn't a tool. She's a person. You don't get to use her for your plan like she's some kind of, of device." Hotaru looked far more angry than intimidated.

"You know, I would argue that point with you, Mystery Saturn Bitch, but I just found my gun." Waldorf drew his pistol and shot Hotaru square in the center of the forehead.

She shrieked in pain, staggered backwards, and fell to the ground, the Glaive vanished from her hands when she lost her balance. She hit the floor on her side and slid backwards a bit further; when she came to a stop the flattened bullet fell out of the pit it left at the site of impact, it looked like the red, bleeding remnants of the world's largest pimple.

"I don't get paid enough for this shit," Waldorf muttered. Mercury sprayed the ground around him, building a wall of ice to trap him; he made no effort to evade it and in short order he was sealed within a dome of white ice. He reached behind him to where he'd been hit by Mercury's attack, when he tried to rub the injured area his hand passed clear through his back. He winced, hissed through his teeth, looked the trails of darkness still hanging on his hand from the wound. "Not by a long shot."

Waldorf dug into his pocket and pulled out two plastic zip-ties and a neatly-folded red bandanna that still had the price tag attached. Mercury cautiously stepped forward to see if he would shoot his way out. Chibi-Moon ran to Hotaru's side, she was wincing and holding her head, wiping away the trickle of blood, but looked otherwise okay.

"Are you okay?" asked Mercury from outside the room. "Be careful, I think he can still shoot his way out. It looks like things only pass through him if he sees them coming, so, so I think we need to try and surround him. Indirect attacks work on him pretty well, too, do either of you have any--." At that point, Waldorf stepped out of a shadow behind her and punched her in the back of the head. She teetered forward and he grabbed both of her arms, brought them together, and held them with one hand around both of her wrists.

"Quit squirming, these things are hard enough to line up as is." He kicked her in the back of the leg once, twice, three times until he managed to get both knees to buckle at once. With both of her arms over her head, he easily wrapped the plastic tie around her wrists to bind them together, too tight to slip off her gloves. "No, to answer what you're thinking," he sighed. Her head was bobbing and twisting back and forth and she was shouting bloody murder until he pulled the bandanna into her mouth to gag her. "I don't even have genitals, so, you're safe there if that'll make you more cooperative. Trust me, when this is done, you're going to be perfectly okay with it and I'm still going to think this whole thing was retarded."

Hotaru half-walked, half-tripped out the doorway, Glaive at the ready and Chibi-Moon close behind. "Let her go!" She paused, thought about it, and amended her statement to "Let her go, you son of a bitch!"

"We are going to come back for you, Little Miss Silent," he said with a laugh far more nervous than evil. "And we obviously need to keep a closer eye on you too -- how the hell are we letting a future girl run around, blabbering on about fusion or antimatter or whatever? You watch yourself, future girl, because I am watching you." He yanked Mercury upward, feet off the ground; she kicked at him but her feet never seemed to touch any part of him. "Oh, stop being such a baby. I'm taking you back with me, I've got an evil crystal at home, you're going in a room with the evil crystal, and sooner or later you're going to come out and throw out an evil laugh and say your name is Shadow Mercury or something asinine like that and then we'll all be on the same page, except I'm still going to think you're an idiot. You've seen this before, it's very cut and dry, kicking me is not going to help."

He nodded at Hotaru and Chibi-Moon again. "Oh, and I'm about to run straight at both of you, so if you don't want her cut in half I'd get rid of that pig-sticker." And then he did just that, charged at them while he held Mercury out as a human shield. Hotaru threw her Glaive across the lawn, it struck a wall, hung there, and vanished. Hotaru and Chibi-Moon both tried to dive sideways but struck each other in midair, Waldorf easily cleared both of them. They found their feet quickly and both gave chase, but Hotaru knew they weren't going to be fast enough. He reached the curbside far ahead of them and unceremoniously chucked Mercury into the open trunk of a navy blue Trans Am with no license plates, and jumped into the driver's seat. Hotaru threw the Glaive at the front tires, hoping she could disable the car, but her throw was short and her weapon stuck harmlessly in the sidewalk.

The car roared to life and sped away from the curb, Chibi-Moon shouted for help, and Hotaru ran after it, hoping it would be caught at a stoplight or stuck in traffic and she could catch up. Of course traffic was always light for villains, and soon she was on her hands and knees in the middle of the road, struggling to breathe, and the car's taillights shrunk out of sight. She turned around, looking for a cab or someone's car she could jump in and say 'Follow that car!' but of course there was nothing, nobody there to help. Ami had been abducted, just like that. Someone had just decided he was going to hurt her and then it was done. Hotaru fell to her hands and knees in the middle of the street, sobbing and coughing in equal measures.

∙ ∙ ∙

Things were going pretty damn well for U-Kigumoko. She had a badass sports car and she'd taken it to police HQ, where for her badass mission she'd scrambled the card reader and snuck in through the underground garage where they keep the police cars and Special Assault Team vans, and the garage had a stairway up into the main building. She'd figured out how to look like a normal human jackass, and that meant she was just one disguise away from waltzing right in to the nerve center of the Tokyo Metropolitan PD. The security cameras wouldn't be able to show her at all, nobody could radio anyone else that they'd seen her because their radios wouldn't work either. Electronic locks freaked out in her presence and manual locks can easily be picked, there wouldn't be anything to keep her from going where she needed to go.

There were a bunch more daimons and kinori waiting in the secret tunnel exit in the garage in case things went wrong, but they weren't gonna, so they were all going to be very bored. And the kinori were all bossy jackoffs and the other daimons were complete goobers so it didn't matter if they were entertained. She didn't need a damn lizard telling her what to do anyway. She didn't need anyone telling her what to do, not a lizard and not the "Master". She didn't take shit from anyone, she was just doing this because breaking into police HQ and liberating a prisoner was very cool, and she was very cool, so they went together splendidly. She heard an approaching conversation and ducked behind a police cruiser, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

"Oh, I agree. The FBI definitely declared victory on this one way too early. There's no way these people are the ringleaders. I had one of them in interrogation, all he was doing was -- get this -- quoting the Magna Carta. I'm not even sure how he thought that was going to work."

"Ha! You got lucky, friend. I was in there with that woman, Truant or something? As soon as I start talking to her, she starts hitting on me. She thought I was going to have sex with her on the table right there and just drop all the charges. And I wouldn't anyway, but she wasn't even all that attractive. Too tall, too muscular, hair full of split ends, face is all dirty, hairy legs, the whole package, but she thinks because she's got breasts I'll fall for her... Americans, am I right?"

"Americans. Everything's always about them. FBI comes over here and muscles their way around because all of a sudden they're more important than what we're doing. And they act like we're a bunch of yellow savages who can't do anything because we don't do anything their way. Then when they catch the low level dim-witted enforcers they pat themselves on the back and fly back to Quantico and leave us to finish cleaning up the mess."

U-Kigumoko slid underneath the car, waiting for them to pass her by so she could creep up on them from behind and take them out, maybe steal their guns and uniforms.

"Washington, actually. The FBI works out of the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington, the training facility is in Quantico. I lost a game of Trivial Pursuit -- oh lord it's her! How did she get out? Escaped detainee on P1!" the plainclothes detective shouted behind him as he went for his gun. The daimon frowned, she thought she'd given herself enough time to get under without being seen, but they must have been running at her or something to throw off her estimate. She pushed herself back out from underneath the car and slowly rose to her feet.

"Keep your hands in the air, Mrs. Truant," the officer said in English as he kept the gun trained on her. "Nobody has to get hurt here." Behind him, the other man pulled the radio out of his pocket, flipped it on, but could get nothing but static.

"Oh, whoah, you hang on a second here," said the camouflaged daimon; her English had a slight Japanese accent. "Did you just say I was that woman you were talking about? Did mister 'My hair is made out of plastic broom bristles, my nose looks like a malignant tumor, I dress like Joe Friday' just say I was too tall and had hairy legs? Because you're obviously the arbiter of what's attractive, right! The supermodels are coming to see Officer Nobody to make sure he approves!"

"Ma'am, calm down. I wasn't insulting you." He edged closer, reaching for his handcuffs.

"Oh, and you think I'm an idiot too! Like you're so damn smart because you're a cop. Well who's stupid now, huh?" She swept her foot upward and kicked the gun out of his hand, bending backwards to move her body out of his line of fire. "Whoops! Dropped your gun! That was boneheaded!" She stepped forward, easily deflecting his defensive punch, and flicked his nose with her middle finger. "Shoulda seen that one coming, too!" He grabbed her wrist and tried to sweep her legs out from under her, she hopped over his foot like a jumprope, twisted out of his grasp, put out her arm and snatched the falling pistol out of midair.

"Now I have your gun, too! Wow, you're terrible at this. You'd think if you were going to run around passing judgment on people you'd have something to back it up, huh?" She kneed him in the stomach; when he doubled over, she delivered an uppercut to his nose.

The detective grabbed his nose with both hands and ducked, giving his partner a clear shot at his attacker. The partner put three rounds right into her center of mass, each of them leaving a yellowish bruise on her 'shirt' rather than piercing a hole. She grabbed her chest and grimaced in pain, but then smiled. "Oh, all this and she's bulletproof too! Bet you can't do that!" The partner's eyes went wide, and he sprinted back towards the stairs; U-Kigumoko briefly thought she should stop him, but decided kicking the guy that called her ugly was more productive. "Say it! Say it, God-damn it!"

"Okay, okay!" The detective coughed. "You're very attractive! And bulletproof! I surrender!"

The daimon blinked. "Actually I wanted you to say you were sorry, but that'll work too." She tilted her head to the side and closed one eye; her skin rapidly flushed to a bright pink and a pair of functionless night-vision goggles 'grew' out of her forehead. Across the lot, a wall began to rumble. "And my name is U-Kigumoko, it's not that hard to remember, you got it?"

"Okay! Okay! Your name is U-Kigamaki! I-- AAH!" The detective looked at her to try to make eye contact and recoiled in shock, rolled away and fell on his back. The daimon frowned, leaned forward, and put the gun to his head. "I wasn't expecting it! I wasn't expecting it, that's all!" he added.

"You're going to expect this one, though." She shifted the gun around to his temple, he winced, she gritted her teeth... then muttered "damn it." She picked up the pair of handcuffs he'd let fall to the ground. "Anyone asks you about this, I was out of bullets, okay?" She pulled him over to the rear bumper of the car, threaded the cuffs through, and locked them around his wrists.

"You did the right thing. This is important, see, you can show you're not a bad p-per... not all bad. That's good for you. We can work with you."

"I doubt that." Across the room, next to an area of the floor marked as a loading zone even though it wasn't near any place to load cargo, the wall of the structure swung open. The backside was a vast wheel-lock like on a bank vault door, and inside were twenty-four white-scaled kinori with shortspears; eleven daimons among which U-Kigumoko could identify a tape deck, some kind of model dump truck, and what looked like a blue-skinned Sailor Venus with a misshapen ribbon between her absolutely gargantuan breasts; and a black-scaled kinori with a lever-action shotgun and an expression that was most likely how kinori express disappointment-slash-anger.

"What the Hell are you doing?" Kher-Aya barked. "You were supposed to get in undetected!"

"Well, situations occurred, I was detected, nobody can change that now. I'd sure like to see YOUR scaly ass do any better."

"You were given an objective and a set of orders and you failed within minutes! Is there any capacity in which you're useful?" He looked back behind him and waved the troops forward. "Fan out, keep in teams of no less than three! Daimons go in first, absorb fire! Kinori move in after and clean up! If you meet Senshi, fall back to defensive position, draw into melee range, keep daimons in cover! Take ranged weapons from fallen officers, on their belts! Daimons, extract any incapacitated kinori to the redezvous point! Immediate, shocking, overwhelming force! Move out!"

"Hey!" U-Kigumoko set one hand on her hip and pointed at Kher-Aya with the other. The other kinori and daimons hustled from the tunnel and made for the stairwells. "I don't have to take shit from you, lizard. Your super-goddamn-ninja-salamander team sure as hell didn't kill any Sailor Senshi, did they? I knocked out the sniper and the best all of you could do was one asshead who wasn't even a Senshi. And now you get to run all up in here and storm this place like in 'The Terminator' and you know that's what you wanted the whole time."

"I haven't even seen that," he growled. "Just the second one. I'm here because the Master and the nest are in danger if they find us. We'll make sure they don't find us. If that takes an assault, we use enough to make sure we get the prisoner and out without leaving any behind. If you're a danger to the nest, Master will take appropriate action against you."

"'Murrr, Master take appropriate action, mee mo ma mo mee mo mo.'" U-Kigumoko held up her middle finger. "Shove it, lizard. You're not better than me, you're not my boss. And when I find your stupid captive first, you're gonna look like a total jackass and I am completely going to rub it in your scaly lizard snout." She ran to the stairwell and bounded up, taking three steps at a time. She didn't know where the police would hide a lizard, but she figured lizards are big, he can't be too hard to find.

She skipped the first floor, figuring it was too obvious, and hurried up to the second, behind more daimons and kinori going to the higher floors. There were screams of panic and the occasional gunshot all over as people reacted to the attack, but U-Kigumoko didn't pay it much mind. After a cursory search, the second floor looked to be just offices, a conference room, a bunch of screaming people in suits and ties, but no cells or evidence lockers or interrogation rooms or lizards anywhere. She was on her way from the balcony over the lobby to the staircase when she heard something she DID pay mind to.

"I am the beautiful warrior of love and justice, Sailor Moon! And in the name of the Moon, I will punish you!"

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

XENOFORM: YOUMA (Supplemental Information)

NEW ARCANE MAGIC FX SPECIALTY SKILL:

Name: Stat: Cost:  
Ex Timor Ex Nihilo INT/PER 6

Meaning "Out of fear, out of nothing," this is the arcane skill used to create/conjure youma. It can be purchased as part of the Diabolism, Entropomancy, or Hermeticism broad skills. When purchased as a Diabolism or Entropomancy specialty, it is a PER-based skill that requires a Good-quality sacrifice (one fatigue point for Diabolists, 7 Life Energy Points for Entropomancers) to be paid at the time of creation. As a Hermetecism specialty, it is an INT-based skill whose use requires reagents worth a total of $3000 (or the setting's equivalent in gold pieces, Concord dollars, yen, et cetera) during the preparation. It cannot be used untrained. Using this skill requires one hour of preparation time, that need not take place immediately before the skill is actually used and does not require foreknowledge of what it will be used on.

While in certain cases is may be necessary for a GM or player to come up with a youma based on an object or person they did not have prior knowledge of, for the most part it is far easier for a player or GM to prepare one or more youma ahead of time and then justify finding a template person or object to match the stats given. The skill check is made prior to the youma's creation, and the effects are applied at the creation: a Marginal youma is created on an Ordinary success, an Ordinary youma on a good success, and a Good youma on an Amazing success. On a failure, the youma core appears normal but fails to function when it tries to merge with an object and dissipates altogether.

Each youma active and created by an individual makes it much harder to create more; the "Ex Timor Ex Nihilo" skill check is at a 3 penalty for each still-living youma that was summoned by the caster. Powerful otherworldly entities such as Queen Metallia and Isci ba Fan are generally not subject to such penalty, but work through proxies who are. Heroes or antagonists who can endure or avoid this penalty will still find mass youma armies to be a bad idea in general; youma are mentally unstable by nature (they are largely made of emotion) and can create more trouble than they solve if not closely monitored. In a "dark generals" or similar game, it may be appropriate to have youma heroes as player characters; as they have access to alterations that give them free skill points and natural resistance to damage, they should start out at many levels below "normal" human / Dark General PCs. Four levels should be the minimum, and youma PC heroes shouldn't be of Good or Amazing quality, though they should be allowed to pick a profession anyway.

Series IX youma are willingly created like normal youma but the attempt incurs a 1 penalty to the skill check. Series IX youma have maximum STR, DEX and CON scores of 18 and their Durability is calculated by multiplying their CON by 1.5, but their maximum INT, WIL and PER scores are 7 and they have -2 to all resistance modifiers. They have no Fatigue track and suffer no penalties from Stun or Wound damage. They are generally dull-witted and act only when ordered or programmed to, and are thus inappropriate for player characters.

(X) Increased Mastery: At rank 6 of this skill, the practitioner can create higher-quality youma. An Amazing success on the skill check makes an Amazing youma, a Good result makes a Good youma, an Ordinary result makes an Ordinary youma, and a failure becomes a Marginal success that produces a Marginal youma.

SAMPLE YOUMA:

Marginal Youma: Gesen Template: Human, "Crane Game Joe.  
Notes: Created by agents of the Dark Kingdom who believed him to be a reincarnation of one of the "Seven Great Youma" to serve Queen Beryl. While Joe could have been a reincarnation of the human template from which that youma was derived, it is not likely the youma he spawned had anything to do with the youma the Dark Kingdom was looking for. His name is likely an abbreviation of "game-center".

STR 11 [ 1 INT 09 [ 0  
DEX 15 [ 3 WIL 10 [ 0  
CON 10 PER 07

Ordinary alteration: Melee Weapon Ordinary alteration: Protean Form Ordinary alteration: Unearthly Agility

Durability: 10 / 10 / 05 / 05 FX Energy Pool: 3 Action Check: 13/ 12 / 6 / 3 Defense: Good toughness (Ordinary against Energy or magic)

Attacks:  
Unarmed/Crane 12/6/3 d4 1s/d4 2s/d4 3s LI/O Hammer 14/7/3 d4w/d6w/d6 2w LI/O

Skills:  
Athletics [11; Melee Weapons [11, Bludgeon [14; Unarmed [11, Brawl [12; Manipulation [15; Vehicle Operation [15; Stamina [10; Knowledge [9; Awareness [10, Perception [12; Interaction [7, Intimidate [9, Taunt [8; Body Alteration, Stretching [11.

Ordinary Youma: Nipasu Template: Object, custom-built emerald statue. Notes: Used by the Black Moon Clan to establish control of a strategic location, an ice cream shop. Nipasu was able to pose as a human employee and use her Telepathy -- Suggest skill to induce feelings of thermophobia and paranoia in the store's customers, fueling a "Crystal Point" for use as an Entropomancy Leypoint. Her ensorcelled ice cream could drain minor quantities of energy from consumers, fueling continuous use of Telepathy -- Suggest. Nipasu's name may be derived from the word "nippy".

STR 08 [ 0 INT 10 [ 0  
DEX 09 [ 0 WIL 12 [ 1  
CON 11 PER 14

Good alteration: Enervation Good alteration: Master Energy (Cold)  
Good alteration: Unearthly Presence

Durability: 11 / 11 / 06 / 06 FX Energy Pool: 18 Action Check: 10/ 9 / 4 / 2 Defense: Good toughness (Ordinary against Energy or Magic)  
May assume human form. May drain Life Energy through use of prepared objects.

Attacks:  
Unarmed 8/4/2 d4 1s/d4 2s/d4 3s LI/O Ice Blast 15/7/3 d4 1w/d6 1w/d4m En/O

Skills:  
Athletics [8; Unarmed Attack [8; Vehicle Operation [9; Stamina [11, Endurance [12; Business [10, Small [11; Knowledge [10; Awareness [12, Perception [14; Investigate [12; Deception [14, Bluff [15; Interaction [14; Charm [16; Telepathy, Suggest [17; Energy (Cold), Energy Blast [15, Energy Control [15.

Good Youma: U-Kigumoko Template: Object, magnetic keycard descrambler.  
Notes: Made from an object that represented its owner's greatest failure or finest qualities, depending on what mood she was in. U-Kigumoko is a walking pile of angry, defensive insecurity, perfectly illustrating how the more powerful a youma is the less emotionally stable. Comparatively few of her capabilities involve her actual template object, most revolve around being a badass femme fatale spy. Her name is derived from "Ukigumo", the first Japanese novel to feature a "femme fatale".

Level 3 Free Agent

STR 11 [ 2 INT 10 [ 0  
DEX 16 [ 4 WIL 11 [ 1  
CON 11 PER 12

Ordinary alteration: Keen Senses Ordinary alteration: Unearthly Presence Ordinary alteration: Unearthly Resolve Good alteration: Master Energy (Magnetism)  
Amazing alteration: Unearthly Agility

Durability: 11 / 11 / 06 / 06 FX Energy Pool: 12 Action Check: 16/ 15 / 7 / 3 [-1  
Defense: Good toughness (Ordinary against Energy or Magic)  
May assume human form. Has a -2 bonus to sensory skill checks.

Attacks:  
Unarmed 19/9/4 d6 1s/d6 3s/d4 1w LI/O

Skills:  
Athletics [11; Unarmed Attack [11, Power Martial Arts [12; Acrobatics [16, Defensive Martial Arts [19, Dodge [18; Manipulation [16, Lockpick [17; Stealth [16; Vehicle Operation [16; Stamina [11; Knowledge [12; Awareness [11, Perception [12; Deception [12, Bluff [13; Interaction [12, Seduce [13; Energy, Energy Blast [14, Energy Control [14; Movement, Fusillade [15.

Amazing Youma: Gamma-Chan Template: Object, control rod at Chernobyl Reactor No. 4 Notes: One of the most powerful youma ever seen on Earth, Gamma-Chan was created in 1988 by Palladia, a member of the Witches 7. She was embodied by all the world's fears of nuclear power and of the Soviet Union; she appeared as a red-skinned woman with glowing green eyes, wearing what looked like a shredded hazardous-materials suit pierced with twisted shards of metal and broken glass. Unable to be controlled, Gamma-Chan preyed on and terrorized workers at reactors 1 to 3, still in use at the time, and denizens of Chernobyl City set up to house those workers.

The Soviet Union, unaware of the existence of Sailor Moon, dispatched a Spetznaz unit to destroy the creature. Astonishingly resistant to damage, they finally were able to defeat Gamma-Chan by repeatedly trampling her with a T-72 tank in order to drag her into a specially prepared explosive-filled trench, sealing the trench in a makeshift sarcophagus, and detonating four satchel charges inside it. Gamma-Chan killed at least 20 plant workers and 7 Spetznaz soldiers directly, another 12 died of leukemia afterward. Palladia never revealed the secret of how she was able to make such a hellish youma, as she died of severe, acute radiation poisoning before she could return to Tokyo and her records were seized by the KGB. Gamma-Chan's name is a reference to fatal gamma radiation.

Level 6 Combat Specialist

STR 13 [ 2 INT 09 [ 0  
DEX 10 [ 0 WIL 14 [ 2  
CON 16 PER 08

Amazing alteration: Defensive Coating Amazing alteration: Master Energy (radiation)  
Amazing alteration: Unearthly Endurance

Durability: 16 / 16 / 08 / 08 FX Energy Pool: 17 Action Check: 13/ 12 / 6 / 3 Defense: Armor d6 2/d6 1/d6 1, Amazing toughness (Good against energy or magic). Energy Field downgrades damage by one additional grade while active.  
-1 bonus to Modern Ranged Weapons -- Rifle checks . -2 bonus to CON-based checks, ignore 4 points of wound penalties, shake off wounds as if they were stuns.

Attacks:  
Unarmed 16/8/4 d4 2s/d4 3s/d4 4s LI/O Radiation Blast 19/9/4 d6 1w/d6 2w/d4 1m En/O AK-47 12/6/3 d6 1w/2d4 1w/d4 1m F/B/A HI/O

Skills:  
Athletics [13; Unarmed [13, Brawl [16; MRW [10, Rifle [12; Vehicle Operation [10; Stamina [16, Endurance [18, Resist Pain [18; Demolitions [9, Set Explosives [11; Knowledge [9; Awareness [14; Resolve [14, Mental [15, Physical [16; Interaction [10, Intimidate [17; Energy (Radiation), Energy Blast [19, Energy Control [19, Energy Field [19. 


	10. Double Cross

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

Nobody could see her and she couldn't see anything, but Mizuno Ami's eyes still went wide when the car came to a stop. She was locked in the trunk at the time, in pitch darkness, her hands bound and mouth gagged, inhaling the odors of potting soil and machine oil that had soaked into the upholstery. She'd been captured as Sailor Mercury, but had de-transformed almost immediately afterwards, hoping with her gloves off she'd have a bit more room to wiggle out of the wrist tie or, failing that, take off her communicator watch and transform back into Sailor Mercury -- she probably would be able to get out a half-intelligible transformation phrase even through a bandanna in her mouth -- and banish the plastic binding back to wherever her normal clothes went when she transformed, leaving her ready to fight as soon as the trunk opened up.

But she didn't expect the trip to be so short, and she hadn't done anything yet. She wasn't quite worried about her secret identity as Sailor Mercury being revealed because her captor was telepathic anyway, she was more worried about the fact that she was un-transformed and thus with no magical protection against bullets, unable to change back for at least another five minutes, still with her hands tied behind her back. She had thought the man needed to be able to see someone to read their minds, but now it looked like she'd overestimated, he'd read her thoughts of escape, and now he'd pulled over to cut them off. That, or the location he was taking her to was practically in spitting distance of the Hikawa shrine.

She heard muffled speech coming from outside, and squinted when the trunk opened up. The light coming in from the streetlights wasn't bright, but it was more than she had in the pitch-black trunk, and it was enough for her to see two men in identical black hats, sunglasses, overcoats and ties. She knew that one was Waldorf and one was Statler, but she couldn't tell which was which. She stared up at both of them, eyes adjusting to the light, they stared back at her for ten seconds before the one on the right wordlessly shut the trunk again.

"Are you on PCP?" the first one asked, in the same tone one would ask 'Did you watch the game last night?'

"What the hell are you on about? Remember this was your idea, and that's what I asked you when I heard it."

"No, no, this was not my idea. I think I would remember if I said to you 'Hey, do you know what would be a good plan? If you tie up Sailor Mercury and haul her over here like a bag of peat moss!'"

"No, that's not what you said. Rewind the goddamned tape. Yesterday, I told you about Mystery Saturn Bitch, and that I couldn't read her, and it hurt like holy balls when she shot her energy-ball at me? And then we tailed her and it turned out she was holed up with all the Sailor Senshi and since we haven't seen a Saturn or a Pluto, Sailor Saturn was probably her? And then you said that if they can find and turn on us, we'd want a Senshi of our own to counter them, and you thought Sailor Mercury would resist conversion the least, is ANY of this ringing a bell or am I taking crazy pills all of a sudden?"

"No, no, no. What I said was, 'if the Sailor Senshi find out about us, they could come after us, and it would be nice to have one of them on our side. I think I can work Ami the easiest.'"

"Yeah, and now here's Ami. I already charged up the kuro-whatever upstairs, take her up and work her over."

"I meant I could sway her with an argument, you jackass!" The man -- it had to be Statler -- slammed his fist down on the car. "She's the smart one, I was going to point out how stupid the whole magic space kingdom was, and slowly get her questioning everything she believed in, and then build her back up as someone friendly to our cause! I wanted a fifth columnist, not a brainwashed minion like that Dendeemion, or whoever!"

"Well excuse me that you don't communicate well, I can't read YOUR mind. If you'll recall, we were perfectly fine with leaving the Senshi alone until I got shot, and all of a sudden YOU think we've got to drop everything and make sure we have a Senshi of our own in case they find us. So I get shot, AGAIN, to get us one, and now you're bitching because you weren't clear enough about what you wanted. And a fifth columnist is stupid anyway, not like she can undermine them when the battle plan is always 'do whatever the hell Sailor Moon is thinking of at the moment.' You just wanted to look mysterious and cool."

"Oh, you knew exactly what I meant, I don't have to read you to know that. You've always got to undermine whatever I'm doing. As soon as I make a plan you've got to swoop in and do it better because Kakyuu forbid I actually accomplish something that was my idea!"

"I'm undermining you, huh? And, so, what do you call you coming in and taking all the guys I convinced were under orders from the FBI off and replacing them with actual cops, actual cops with a chain of command that people might listen to when they say an FBI agent was giving them strange orders? That's perfectly fine, that you bring in people who are more likely to blab, but I get us a Senshi and now I'm undermining you. I thought you were a gardhyi, not a whiny bitch."

Statler started to respond, but paused, listening to someone talking that Ami couldn't make out. "It's none of your business, that's what, you keep walking!"

Another pause, and then Waldorf cut in with "She's cheating on you, okay? When you go to work, Fukuda Tamiko is... I'm sorry, when you go to SCHOOL, those night classes Tuesdays and Thursday, she's getting plowed by a guy named Shinobu down the hall. Yeah, the cop. She's only going out with you because your family's rich. ...Oh, you don't know him, huh? Check her purse, buddy, she's got the key to his apartment, 5G. Yeah, you're welcome!"

The car shifted downward, Ami guessed they were both leaning on it. "Damn, look at her go. That is never not going to be hilarious to me."

"What gets me is they're always so surprised. Have they not been paying attention at all?"

"If ever we needed proof these people don't need to see the stars, that's it. They keep putting their hands on that stove, over and over." He paused and sighed. "So what are we going to with Mercury here?"

"Well, we can't just throw her back and say 'sorry about the mixup'. She'll be easy to brainwash anyway. I mean, if it worked on that Mamoru guy, no way a meek woman like her is going to resist it. We can probably knock it out in like a day."

"So then what?"

"Then we have out own Senshi to boss around and shoot ice balls at things, that's what." He paused, made a groan of contemplation. "And, I dunno, I guess you could undermine someone else. There has to be another Senshi you can work on for a fifth columnist."

"Eh, Jupiter feels like she's not valued enough on the team, I could do something with that."

"See? You can work on Jupiter. Appealing to her petty emotions will probably work better than an appeal to logic anyway, and if it doesn't, now we have a backup plan, and if it DOES work, we still have a walking, talking computer-brain to help us with all the shit in this city that isn't Senshi-related."

"All right, all right. But you stay away from her until I'm done, okay? It's a delicate, sensitive procedure."

"Hands off, I promise, won't even go near her. We are going to have to do something about Mystery Saturn Bitch, though. And the little pink one, Usagi Small Lady Hoojamawhatever. You know I read her today and she's a time traveler from like five hundred years in the future or something?"

"No shit? We're gonna need to get on that before she starts blabbing on about stardrives and maser rifles and gives people ideas."

"Well, she is pretty damn young, she probably doesn't understand how... Wait, nobody's looking, let's take her up now. Game face on."

The trunk popped open again and the two men in black were standing in almost the same places they were before, staring at her inscrutably behind their black glasses, expressions stony. "Come with us, Ami-chan," said Statler. "It's time you..." He stopped and hissed through his gritted teeth. "...shit."

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 10: DOUBLE CROSS ∙ ∙ ∙

TOKYO METROPOLITAN POLICE HEADQUARTERS KASUMIGASEKI, TOKYO, JAPAN MONDAY FEBRUARY 21, 1995 8:09 PM

Sailor Moon charged through the double doors leading into the lobby of Tokyo police headquarters. The lobby was a strange trapezoidal shape, to fit in the corner of the wedge-shaped plot of land overlooked by a balcony from each of the second and third floors. There was a reception desk in the middle of the room, which had just been cracked in half, and a glass wall separating the lobby from the offices, which Sailor Moon had just blasted a daimon through before it turned back into a lawn chair.

"I am the beautiful warrior of love and justice, Sailor Moon!" she called, striking a pose. "And in the name of the Moon, I will punish you!"

She usually said that to herald her presence, but this time she thought she'd need to say it so they'd recognize her. Her hair was let down, she was wearing a camo T-shirt over her distinctive collar and bow, though she left the pants outside as it was hard to run in them. She didn't look like Sailor Moon at all, save for the Moon Rod, the skirt, and the fact she'd just destroyed a youma.

There were screams, crashes, and sounds of broken glass as men in suits fled, screaming, from the daimon attack. She heard a warbling voice from the offices yell "Hey, we got a Sailor Moon over here!" She spotted the blue face of another daimon before it ducked back behind a corner and ran after it, meaning not to let it get away, she skidded to a halt and barely missed being impaled when something shoved a spear around the corner at her. There were two more of the kinori-lizards, holding spears, waiting for her.

She didn't have enough room to get off another Moon Spiral Heart Attack without getting speared halfway through it, and ran off to the doorway with the two lizards waddling after her. She looked back and saw she didn't get nearly enough distance between them, but she did get them next to a window, so that when the first kinori attacked Tuxedo Kamen could break through it and slap the attack away with his cane. She knew he was here, she'd rode the bus here with him, but still her heart raced every time he came to her rescue.

"Stop, evildoer!" he said in a voice full of noble chivalry. "How dare you--" he ducked underneath a thrusting attack from this first kinori the left his top hat on the tip of the spear, "--attempt to destroy--" he spun out of the path of the second kinori's attack and kicked him in the cheek with the heel of his dress shoe, "--this cornerstone of law and order!" He extended his cane into the first kinori's chest and pinned him to the floor. "It's unforgivable!"

Tuxedo Kamen barely caught a glimpse of a blue daimon peeking around the corner and extending his hand before a pressurized jet of water hit him in the chest and sent him tumbling to the floor. "Ha! I GOT you that time, everybody saw it!" the daimon crowed as it ducked back behind cover. The two kinori leapt at Kamen, he kicked one out of the air but the second one managed to spear him in the shoulder. Sailor Moon smacked him in the head with the Moon Rod, she didn't do much damage, but she distracted it long enough for Kamen to smack him away with the cane.

He winced at the pain, but rose to his feet anyway. He pushed the two kinori back with thrusts from his extending cane until he had enough time to reach into his suit coat and throw a fan of enchanted roses in their direction. One took it in the leg and one in the stomach; Kamen fell back to brace for a counterattack, and the two kinori ran as fast as they could in the other direction. They may have been awkward and waddling, but they could really haul ass when they were fleeing something. Moon and Kamen nodded at each other, broke in different directions, and circled around to catch the water-daimon. That made two down.

∙

"You know, this entire farce has got us out of jail at least seven times," said Bill, using a word he'd just learned, "and I am just flabbergasted every time it actually works."

"Well, 'Free Bird' is at least good for two things," Donna said as she handcuffed one of the guards -- his English name tag said 'Itsuki' -- to the bed. "Getting hillbillies to hold up their cigarette lighters, and springing us out of jail. I'm not sure why it works, but why change a classic? I just wish they kept Nakami with us, Free Bird doesn't work when you're breaking into a secret Area 51 containment cell." She pulled the radios off the two guards' belts and gave them a listen to make sure they hadn't had a chance to make a call; all she could hear was static.

"Uhh, about that," said the other guard she'd cuffed, a 'Shinobu'. "When they catch you again, could you, uh, not tell them how you escaped? Because if our supervisors heard..."

"Oh, oh, right, right." Donna took the keys, radios, and other equipment out of the cell and slid the bars closed. "I'm just trying to break us out, not ruin you guys's careers." She locked the door and gave it an experimental tug. "If you tell them I smuggled in a set of collapsible lockpicks that I used to break out and a tube of knockout gas I used to overpower you, nobody's gonna contradict you."

By now the Mugen students were making an enormous ruckus, some of them terrified and some of them elated at the prospect of a jailbreak, and Shinobu had to yell over them to be heard. "That would be for the best, thank you!"

Donna kissed the back of her knuckles and threw up the 'V for Victory' sign, then slapped the cell keys into Nadine's hand and left down the hallway to drop off the other things at the now-empty security desk. Bill, Philip, and the two Mugen students they shared a cell with lined up at the door as Nadine searched for the key. When she slid it open Bill nearly bowled her over in is rush to get out of the confining stone jail cell and into the confining stone jail hallway. Behind him, Philip was shaking his head and making the 'cut off' gesture; when he walked out, she shut the door behind him. The two men still in there were taken aback, and as he took the keys from Nadine and locked them back in, he bowed, apologized, said "I'll explain, just a moment."

He whistled once, clapped his hands, and pointed at himself, even though most everyone couldn't see him. "Okay, everyone, listen up!" he said as the noise calmed down. "Uh, what you need to know is that the rumors about the Mugen Academy are true, they were training witches there, Dr. Suoichi Tomoe was their ringleader, and he was probably trying to destroy the world. And all of you have been having blackouts because they can use you to carry out their orders, so, we can't let you out just yet."

They erupted into a cacophony of disbelief. "What? You mean we're stuck here? You're insane! There's no such thing as witches! What if they make us kill each other? I didn't have any blackouts! Why can't you let us out anyway? What will the government do to us if they think we're bewitched..."

"Let me finish! Okay, everyone here is bewitched, and you'd be dangerous if we let you out. I know a few of you got the living daylights beaten out of them by my friends here because you were trying to suck brains out of people."

"Hearts," Nadine corrected.

"Whatever. The point is right now we don't know if you could be controlled again, so you're safest in here. Now the police probably know you're innocent too, and don't want you out for the same reason, but unless they've killed, like, half of the population for knowing too much, you'll be fine once you get out. We've gotta break out of here so we can kill the thing they were summoning, and once we do that, you're in the clear, nothing else will be able to use the spell on you. You'll be in here for probably two, three more days at most. Now we've kind of got a time limit to escape here, but I wanted to make sure that everyone knew what was going on, okay? You hear that, you two? They didn't help us, we didn't help them, no criminal charges, they just need to be here a few more days until we kill the alien demon that can control their minds. Is everyone clear?"

They were silent for ten full seconds, then erupted into panicked screams. Philip started to say something else, but Bill dragged him down to the desk, where upon rounding the corner they saw a man in a black suit and tie with dark glasses and an insufferably smug grin, flanked by two more officers with shotguns, one of whom had his weapon levelled at Donna's head. "Nice try, jackass," he smirked.

"What? Phil said, finger in his ear to block out the sound of the students yelling.

"I SAID, NICE..." he said as loud as he could while retaining his haughty tone, then just growled in frustration. He pointed at the second cop, nodded back to the unruly prisoners, and said "Shut them up, would you?" The cop worked the pump-action on his shotgun and the room became silent. "There, that's better. I said, 'Nice try, jackass'."

"Oh. Lovely."

"And I heard how they escaped, too!" he shouted to Itsuki and Shinobu. "You two should be ashamed of yourselves!"

"Oh. Great." Donna said, rolling her eyes, and with not nearly enough concern for the fact a gun was levelled at her head. "Which one are you? Are you Ralph the Dog or Swedish Chef or Snuffleupagus or some other asshole?"

"And can we skip this next part where you throw out the little missives of sneering contempt and show off your cool powers because we already did that with your friends." Philip and Nadine edged away from the other two.

"What?" The man in the suit took off his glasses and slid them into his pocket; his eyes were a perfectly normal purple shade. "Are you hopped up on goofballs and seeing Muppets or something?"

"Fine, who are you?" she asked, stressing the 'you'.

"Since you asked so nicely, I'm the man who's going to be the next head of the NPA after he sends the five of you to prison for the rest of your lives." He flashed a sharky grin that looked to have slithered straight out of Wall Street circa 1988. "I was worried the Americans might make a case to extradite you, but this little stunt here will ensure you stay where I can get at you."

"How great for you..." Bill winced as he heard a large crashing noise from somewhere else in the building, winced a little further and closed one eye when he heard the smaller 'whump' following it, and curled back his lips when he heard the remote 'pop' of gunfire. "...I don't want to ask what that was, because then it's going to get worse, isn't it?"

The man in the suit nodded repeatedly, his composure visibly deteriorating and held out a finger. "Could you hang on for just one second?" he said to nobody in particular, and vaulted over the security desk to duck and cover underneath it. The second cop saw that, nodded, and walked down to the end of the hallway to hide underneath one of the cots.

The remaining cop looked around, very confused, and the Hoffmann agents were all dreading the same thing. "Oh, we know what this is," Bill muttered.

∙

"Not right!" Kher-Aya shouted, waving his shotgun at the two men he had cowering under a desk. "Should be more here. This is offices, not the police! And you!" He pointed at U-Kigumoko, she gritted her teeth and her neck quivered. "Why are you reading budgets to see where the prisoner is?"

She slapped the stack of papers she was riffling through against the wall, causing them to drift everywhere. "Well, maybe if you could read a MAP, you'd have brought us to the police station instead of Nakatomi Plaza!"

"You drove here! You couldn't figure it out!"

"You gave me an address and I went to it! Don't you get snippy with me, lizard!" She turned down the hall to talk to the two daimons turning over chairs and desks to find a missing kinori POW; one was a red, puffy thing with boxing gloves for hands and one was a blue-skinned off-model Sailor Venus. "You guys back me up on this, don't you?"

"Shut up! I hear-- Oh for the love of Sobek!" He spun on a footclaw and fired off a shell at the stairwell, blowing Tuxedo Kamen's hat off and sending him crashing into Sailor Moon behind him. "Them again! Quick, make cover!" The other kinori with him pulled out desks and tables to make an impromptu fort, Sailor Blue Venus jogged over to them with her breasts heaving ridiculously with every step. "And you!" He pointed at U-Kigumoko, "Get to first floor, seal their escape!"

"I'll seal your goddamn escape, you scaly piece of shit," she grumbled as she walked to the balcony. She leapt off the edge and even stuck the landing, it hurt like crazy and nobody was watching but she felt like she had to.

Kamen found his feet first and held back Sailor Moon from advancing further. "They've set up a defense. We'll have to be careful." He paused, and in Mamoru Chiba's normal voice he asked "Can you still throw your tiara?"

"I didn't forget how to, it just doesn't work very well any more. Why?"

He crept up to the edge of the stairs, as high as he could go without exposing himself to fire. "When I tell you to, I want you to... wait, I think someone's coming."

"Stupid goddamn lizard thinks he's hot shit," mumbled U-Kigumoko as she made her way to the stairs. Who put the damn lizard who thinks he's the Terminator in charge, huh? A bunch of other stupid lizards, that's who. Lizards don't get to give her orders. And hell, for that matter, who decided to put the Master in charge? She didn't give a shit about what he was doing, it's not like he was BETTER than her or anything, what gave him the right to boss her around? She sure as hell didn't need any Master. In fact, screw the Master. Screw him and the lizards and all the other goofballs.

She arrived at the landing just before the third floor, and saw a surprised Sailor Moon looking back at her. "You know what, Sailor Moon?" U-Kigumoko put one hand on her hip. "I'm just going to--"

the Moon Spiral Heart Attack that struck her directly in the face cut off that sentence, and any others she was planning on making.

∙

"So, you go to all this trouble, you hire the engineers, you hide the funding and you get the land and you build an Eiffel Tower so you can install a secret mass driver under it. Okay. And then, a spaceship shows up, and you just sit there and let it abduct people!"

Kunimatsu Takaji rubbed his eyes, or at least the small area his hands could cover. "You don't even know how mass drivers work, do you? Now you're just pissing with me just to piss with me. I'm not going to shoot a nine hundred kilogram spike of solid tungsten at twenty times the speed of sound into a spaceship that's hovering like TEN METERS OFF THE SKYLINE. You're seriously telling me you're going to bathe Japan in shrapnel to stop it from abducting someone. You are absolutely unbelievable."

"If you can't shoot down a UFO with your Tokyo Tower cannon," Nakami said in the most patronizing voice his lungs were capable of producing, "then maybe you should try and invest in a system that can!"

Takaji cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. "WE ALREADY DID. HER NAME IS SAILOR MOON. WHY ARE YOU NOT GETTING THIS."

"Because you--"

"No. Shut up, okay? Just, just shut up." Takaji rubbed his temples, which were closer to the chin on his fraal skull. "God, can you hear yourself? It's nothing but bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, every single time you open your mouth." He held up both his hands as if they were two tiny grey puppets, and opened his fingers to make them 'talk' in time with his mocking, squeaky speech. "'Oh, you can't use Sailor Moon! Oh, you can't hide the youma so Sailor Moon's job is easier! Oh, you can't bail out the banks! Oh, you can't ignore the earthquake! Oh, you can't build a mass driver! Oh, you can't not use the mass driver! You gotta give me a second chance on Atlantis! You gotta do this, you gotta do that, hurf, durf, a hurfa durfa doo!' I have been in here for a couple hours and I want to jump underneath a bus! I cannot imagine what your staff feels like. You're like a five year old in a loincloth and a tie, but you don't have the excuse of being cute."

Behind him, the door swung open, and the security officer peeked his head in. "Sir, I know you said not to be disturbed, but there's a serious..." His eyes went wide as he processed what they saw. On one end of the table was Itohiro Nakami, a haggard looking man with a stained tie, and on the other end of the table was Kunimatsu Takaji, a little grey alien with big almond eyes wearing a kimono. They looked at each other for ten seconds solid, frozen in fear, before Takaji has the presence of mind to bring his human illusion back up. The air around him flickered and darkened and in a second his tiny fraal body was replaced with a stern human in a dark suit.

Takaji held a slim hope he could talk his way out of this, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Officer Toshiyuki Kosugi bolted, running down the hall and screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Damn it, I am going to have to catch him..." Takaji spun around and shoved the table into Nakami, it didn't travel very far. "You're staying in here!" he shouted as he made a run for the door. "And when I get back, I am going to sell your ass to the Fox network!"

∙

Screams, then more muffled gunshots from above. Donna nodded at the cop pointing his gun at her head. "Uh, someone tell him to put that down? I think both of us just got much bigger problems."

"He speaks English." Philip nodded. "I recognize you. You were with the man in black to serve the arrest at the Hikawa shrine earlier today. Minori?"

"Yeah. It was only a few hours ago." His weapon didn't move, but his head did, to glance down at his commanding officer, hiding under a desk. "What are these bigger problems you're talking about?" The man in the suit was quivering slightly, but for the most part he was just drumming his hands on his knees as if he were waiting for a bus that stopped at this particular desk.

Another scream, and what sounded like a burst of electricity. "Daimons are what she's talking about," Philip said, his voice grave. "Monsters. Your friend and that jerk are freaking out because apparently that's what most people do when they get near them. He's not going to remember any of this happened. I don't know how many other people will either."

"You must think I'm pretty stupid..."

"Wait, you think there's a youma?" called a voice from down the hall. It was Shinobu, overhearing their conversation. "Because Itsuki just went under the bed and when I say anything to him he says 'Yeah, gimme another five minutes,' and don't youma have the power to cloud men's minds?"

"I don't know what a youma is," Philip continued. "But a daimon is a monster that looks like a really brightly-colored woman in a silly theme costume, with dangerous powers that's almost impossible to kill.

"Yeah, that sounds like a youma!" Shinobu yelled. They... Look, can someone just unlock me and bring me up? They already caught you anyway."

In unison, Philip, Donna, and Bill said "Not it." Nadine rolled her eyes, took two sets of keys, and went to free Shinobu.

"But, uh, yeah." Shinobu rubbed his wrist. "I think you're talking about youma. I've only seen Sailor Moon kill a couple, but they tell you about them if you're ever going to have a beat in Juuban."

"They also tell us we're not supposed to talk about it!"

"Well they already know, I don't see what it hurts! I mean, damn, Minori, you really think it'll matter?"

"Yeah, we know about them. They work for something called Pharaoh 90. Sailor Saturn is the one who can kill them, and if one is here, then either it's come to suck out people's hearts, or it thinks Sailor Saturn got arrested with us and it wants to kill her. Either way, it's probably going to check down here and unless one of you is hiding a Glaive in his pants..."

"Wait, there's a Sailor Saturn? Because, like I said, I saw Sailor Moon kill a couple of those things when I was on the beat, and other people have seen other planets, and there might have been a Pluto once, but nobody's ever seen a Saturn." Minori looked at Shinobu as if he'd just admitted to... well, to being a grown man with an interest in Sailor Moon, really.

"There used to be a Sailor Saturn," Nadine muttered.

"There still is a Sailor Saturn," Bill corrected. "The herald of catastrophe. Soldier of ruin and rebirth. And we're on her team. We run with Sailor Saturn. You guys are taking orders from a shadowy psychic asshole FBI Man in Black with too many thumbs, and underneath that a complete prick, so whose team are you on?"

"So, then... does that mean, thaaat... you're on the Sailor Team too? Or, like, what?"

"Why do--"

"As a matter of fact, we are," Philip cut Donna off. "Sailor Juno, Sailor Vesta, Sailor Ceres, and Sailor Pallas." He waited, then when nobody recognized them, added "The four major asteroids." He himself had learned that fact a few weeks ago from an episode of 'Jeopardy!' and figured there was no chance there would ever be an actual Senshi who wanted to use the same name.

Shinobu squinted and acted like he was giving that statement a great deal of consideration, far more than it deserved. "...No you aren't."

"If there's a freaky colorful monster up there tearing things up and we kill it, can you tell your boss that we are and that's why we escaped? Because daimons indicate we're the least of your problems?"

Minori considered it for a moment, heard another crash from upstairs, and lowered his weapon. "Kill it first, then we'll see."

"All right then," Donna said, dusting off her hands. "Ceres, what was it, asteroid? Yeah. Ceres asteroid power, make the hell up."

∙ ∙ ∙

The room the two Men in Black took her to was familiar, but it took Ami a second to realize why. She had been here once before, but there were vines growing on the outside of the building; this was Ail and Ann's apartment complex and she was pretty sure they took her to Ail and Ann's apartment, though the decor had changed. Stacks of newspapers took the place of furniture in most places. Three small televisions, stacked in a pyramid, showed three different news channels. Light came from unshaded bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The room was not ill-kept, however, every stack of paper was perfectly squared away, nothing was left on the floor, nothing was stained, no dishes were in the sink, the only thing on the counter was a humming, pulsing black crystal emitting a nacreous cloud of shadow. In the center of the living area was a wooden chair and a coil of bright purple climbing rope. Waldorf and Statler appeared to keep house in a manner both fastidious and totally insane.

"Okay, Ami-chan," Statler said as he pushed her into the room and closed the door behind them. "I'm sure you want to get home, so, let's try and get through this as quickly as possible, okay? If you cooperate it will be a lot easier." His voice was so syrupy and so false she thought it was more aspartame than saccharine. She knew he could read her mind, there was no way he could think this sudden turn to kindness would work, but even as she thought that he didn't react. Waldorf glanced up at her, stifled a laugh, and went back to reading the mail.

Statler removed her watch and took the pen out of her pocket. "Okay, now, Ami-chan, I'm going to take off this gag. Just to show that you can trust me." She had no idea how he would ever, possibly, think that statement was true. "Now, don't do anything that would make me regret it, okay?"

He untied the bandanna and pulled it away from her face, regarding the wad of spit that had soaked into it with disgust. He and Ami looked at each other in silence for five seconds, and though he had to know what she was going to do, she did it anyway. "HELP! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEBODY HELP ME I'VE BEEN KIDNAPPED CALL THE POLICE!" She charged for the window at the far wall, hoping she could break it open with her shoulder, only to be tripped by Waldorf and sent facefirst into the floor, coming to a stop right in front of the chair.

"Also, the room is silenced, so nobody would hear if I shot you four times in the chest right now," Waldorf deadpanned.

"Ami-chan, why did you do that?" Statler shook his head in a not-quite-perfect replica of how humans express disappointment. "I wanted to show I trusted you and you violated that!"

"No you didn't!" Ami laughed in panic and disbelief. "What are you DOING? What's WRONG with you? You can't, you can't, can't can't just throw me in a car and kidnap me and show me the chair you're going to tie me to and then say I'll trust you!" She tried to push herself back, away from them, but her socks just slid around on the floor. "Who are you, what, what do you want? Why do you think the Sailor Senshi will attack you?" It was obvious why, because the two of them were made of pure evil, but she was flailing around in blind terror, trying to find some magical theoretical combination of sounds that she could give him that would prevent what was going to happen next.

"Oh, don't worry about that. They probably won't anyway. You don't have to worry about having to fight your little friends, okay? We're just being extra-cautious." His voice was like a condescending pediatrician.

"Then what do you need me for at all? You could let me go and I wouldn't tell them anything. Forget this whole thing ever, ever even happened. Please..." Her voice cracked. She was dimly aware, in the back of her mind, that she shouldn't be trying to make such a bargain with the forces of evil, that she couldn't call mulligans on evil plans. What was going to happen next scared her so deeply and so completely she couldn't care. "...please, please just forget this ever happened."

Waldorf handed Statler something and whispered in his ear. Statler nodded, and said, "Ami-chan, there's no reason to be frightened! Here, I got you a gift, just to show you can trust me." He walked to her, crouched, leaned over her. His body had no odor to it, gave off no heat. He pulled out the object Waldorf had given him, a ring set with a large sapphire; when the light hit it just right it looked like there was a lightning bolt running down the center. When he opened his mouth to talk, in his grating faux-sugary tone, she could see he had two rows of teeth. "See? We got this just for you, as a present. We can't be all bad, can we?"

She stared up at him, transfixed in horror. There was no way he thought she would believe it. Why would he even be saying these things, just to mock her, humiliate her, scare her even more deeply? Why bother when he could read her mind? He knew he could change it anyway. But if he thought it really could work...

"You..." she whispered, "you don't even know what trust is, do you?"

He clapped his hands on his knees and exhaled. "Eh, I tried." Then he reached out and before she could evade him grabbed her by the collar with a two-thumbed hand. "Help me tie her down, okay?" She struggled, tried to squirm away, kicked at them with frenetic intensity to try and free herself, but they knew every direction she was going to move in as she thought of it, there was no way out. They bound her to the chair and she started to hyperventilate, her palms started to sweat, her jaw quivered. Waldorf took the crystal, a hexagonal thing that looked like the ones the Dark Kingdom had used, and set it floating in front of her face. She turned away as far as her head would go but her eyes were drawn to the horrible thing and the shadowy corona that spread to envelop her, by no supernatural pull but by the same force that compels a deer to stare into a pair of headlights right before it gets crushed by a van.

She started screaming again, at first pleas for help and rescue, and then desperate and incoherent shrieks of terror. Even as the crystal enveloped her in darkness, she could see what was happening in front of her; Waldorf had turned three televisions on and turned up the volume to drown her out, and Statler was eating a plate of raw hamburger with chopsticks. She'd had nightmares about this ever since what happened to Mamoru, and more after what happened to Chibi-Usa. Dreams that left her clutching her pillow like she was trying to tear it in half, panting, soaked in sweat. Or worse, the dreams where she'd wake up totally unable to move, control of her own body totally stolen away.

Dreams where someone swooped in under cover of darkness and took her away, and opened up the working of her mind and soul and rewrote it to their liking and there was nothing at all she could do about it, and by the end she'd been made into someone entirely different, turned against all she ever loved and made to feel as if it was her idea, her free will was obliterated and replaced with a script and she couldn't even TELL because the part of her that would know had been forcibly extracted along with everything else that made her her and there wouldn't be any magic Moon healing for her this time because this was for good and she would be worse than dead because everything about Mizuno Ami would be annihilated and beyond dead and NOTHING could save her and NOTHING could bring her back because there wasn't anything TO bring back because they weren't replacing her they shredded her to pieces and reassembled her all wrong but nobody could ever find a way to put her back together and she'd forced into a twisted mockery of thought and existence FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.

And now she was tied to a chair, unable to move, staring down a thrumming black crystal, and it was happening to her for real. Every nightmare came flooding back and still couldn't compare to the horror of the real thing. And the two men in black were so blase, casual, the most terrifying thing she could ever have imagined was happening to her and they weren't cringing and regretting it, they weren't laughing and relishing in her pain, they were watching TV and drinking soda. Her thoughts were just a device that they could take apart and reshape as they desired, as if her mind were a computer and they were killing time while Windows reformatted. She kept screaming, but nobody heard her. Nobody ever, ever heard her.

∙ ∙ ∙

"They're trying to get at us from below while we try to break their defense," Tuxedo Kamen said. "We will have to be quick to avoid being caught in a pincer."

Sailor Moon bent over and picked up the white keycard descrambler the slain daimon had turned into. "Huh. You know, that daimon didn't look anything like this. Wonder what it is?" She turned it over in her hand. "I bet it belongs to that woman. They looked pretty similar."

"Sailor Moon! The battle?"

"Oh! Right, right." She slid the card into the small pocket in her skirt and nodded at Kamen attentively. "I hurl the tiara up there in an arc, then you come in while they're being smacked around." She rubbed her hands together, pulled off the tiara and gave it a spin, getting back her old technique. "Moon... Tiara... Action!"

She lobbed the tiara in an arc up through the doorway, when she heard the first lizard squeal, Kamen jumped up and prepared to throw his rose. His hand didn't make it out of his jacket before someone on the floor shouted "Venus Crescent BEAM!" and he took a bright orange laser to the gut. He buckled over, took a second "Venus Crescent BEAM!" to the shoulder, and a spray of shotgun pellets. Moon grabbed his cape and dragged him out of the line of fire before he could take another hit; he was stunned and bleeding in several places.

"Tuxedo Kamen! Tuxedo Kamen, are you okay?" She shook him by the shoulders, and his head lolled around, eyes made halfhearted attempts to open, but he would need a few seconds to get together. She heard heavy footfalls echoing from several floors above, and after a moment, the soft clacking of foot-claws. The blackscale kinori stood in the doorway, glistening in the harsh light of the fluorescent, shotgun across his shoulder.

"Sailor Moon!" he barked. "Think we forgot? Think kinori forgot Silver -- HA! -- Millennium? Master will make the surface world pay. And I am going to make you suffer!"

The blackscale fired at her, knocking her back into the wall, and instantly leapt at her. He landed on her chest, raked her across the face with the claws of one hand as he flip-cocked his weapon with the other. She screamed and grabbed at the wound, but she also managed to duck and roll away, Kher-Aya's shotgun blast churning up nothing but a storm of plaster dust. She smacked him across the snout with the Moon Rod as she rose to her feet, and he grunted, but she didn't have Makoto's arms and the Rod wasn't made for bludgeoning and he retaliated by smacking her across the jaw with the gun. She shouted in pain, and her tooth went flying out of her jaw and bouncing down the stairs.

"No warrior, are you?" He laughed. "Some great leader! Can't fight without your magic and minions!" He punched her in the stomach with his tiny clawed hand.

"Sailor Moon will always be able to fight, because her friends are always at her side!" Kher-Aya turned around just in time to see Tuxedo Kamen, his tuxedo ripped and streaked with blood, throw a rose at him; with preternatural speed, Kher-Aya lifted his weapon just in time to catch the rose in the barrel.

"That. Was stupid." he snarled, and pulled the trigger, sending out a flurry of rose petals and sending Kamen into the wall, hard, before he hit the stairs, harder. Kher-Aya flipped the shotgun again, only to send it flying, clattering down the gap between the stairwells, when Sailor Moon kneed him in the elbow. "My gun!" He instinctively went to the handrail to try to grab it, and that's when Moon slammed him in the back of the head with the Moon Rod as hard as she could and sent him, squealing, over the edge. She didn't peek over the edge; if she did, she would have seen him catch the handrail on the second floor for a second, lowering his momentum enough to hit the first floor mostly unharmed.

She slapped the call button on her watch as she rushed to Kamen's side. "Sailor Venus?" she shouted. "Where are you, this is Sailor Moon, I heard you somewhere, Tuxedo Kamen is hurt!"

"Gonna need... a couple minutes..." Kamen moaned.

Moon heard a voice that sounded nothing at all like Sailor Venus, from the third floor, shout "I'm right here, Sailor Moon! Where are you?"

In a few seconds another figure appeared in the doorway and the first thing Moon thought was that it was a daimon cosplaying Sailor Venus. Blue skin, malformed ribbon, a full foot taller than Venus, no earrings, and gargantuan breasts straight out of a Sailor Moon otaku's fantasy. Moon stammered for a second, at a loss, and Daimon-Venus said "Oh, is that where you were?" As Moon got the presence of mind to pull out the Moon Rod, Daimon-Venus turned around and shouted "It's okay, guys! It's Sailor Moon, she's on our side! Stand down and all that!"

Moon blinked and held the Moon Rod in midair, not really sure what that just meant. "Oh no!" Daimon-Venus said with an amazing level of overemotion, "What happened to Tuxedo Kamen?" She bounded down the stairway, breasts heaving in a way that Moon was pretty sure violated the laws of physics. When the daimon leaned in close to her, hugged her, and kissed her on the cheek, she estimated it was the single most awkward moment of her life. But the daimon pulled away instead of trying to crush her, and her cheek didn't burn or start siphoning energy out of her. "Hey, how'd you lose a tooth?"

"Uhhh... the black lizard knocked it out?" She rubbed her jaw. "Right in the same place as before, I'll have to go find that tooth again..."

"Who, Kher-Aya?" Daimon-Venus waved her hands dismissively. "Oh, no no no. I mean, he's a jerk and all, but why would he attack you? We're on the same team!" She gave Moon another inappropriate hug. "We're all the good guys!"

Moon blinked, but she actually was starting to get it. Daimons were made from stuff, and someone made a daimon from something that looked like Sailor Venus, like a UFO catcher doll or one of those little plastic figurines, so now they had a daimon that thought it was Sailor Venus. That could be good, right? "Yes, we are the good guys!" Moon responded. "Why are we here again?"

"Oh, I don't know, they don't tell me much. Just follow the kinori around while they look for something and get shot if anyone has a gun. And watch out for Senshi, they're dangerous!" She nodded at Sailor Moon "So keep an eye out."

Kamen opened his eyes again, his Senshi powers giving him the ability to absorb far more punishment than he really would have liked. "Uhh..." he looked up at daimon.

Moon answered his unspoken question. "This is Sailor Venus, remember? He hit his head." Daimon-Venus nodded sagely and even that made her breasts shake, it was absolutely ridiculous.

"Oh. Okay?" Kamen, still a little groggy, made a pass over himself with his healing powers to clean up the bruises and contusions. He felt better, but he was still sore, and it's likely hurt just as much as before if he got hit again, which he would.

"Hey, you should have said something before!" She poked Kamen. "That's probably why we always announce who we are to the enemy, so we don't shoot each other." Her elongated ears perked up, and they heard claws clacking again, and turned to see Kher-Aya coming up the stairs, fuming. "Hi, Kher-Aya, look who I found! They can help us look for the thing!"

Kher-Aya emitted a noise that wasn't in a language any of them spoke but was certainly the foulest curse he knew and shot Sailor Moon again, she collapsed like she was made of lead.

∙

Four Hoffmann Institute agents crept up the stairs and through the hallways of the police station, trying to find a daimon before it found them.

"Phil, I never thought I would ask you this," Bill whispered, "but why did you say we could kill a demon? Usually, I say that kind of thing, and you sigh and give me that look that says you hate God for testing you so."

"Hey, we're on the clock now. I'm Sailor Pallas."

"Damn, I wanted Pallas. That was the dude from 'The Raven', right?"

"Not the same Pallas."

"It still sounds cool."

"And I figure from what Donna said, how badly the daimon got hurt when she hit it with a car, we can kill this stuff without magic. It just takes longer to heap on enough punishment."

"And by 'we' you mean me and Donna."

"And by 'we' I mean you and Donna do most of the work, and Nadine and I find heavy things and throw them. I think we are on the clock here, we can't afford to sit out. We need to get rid of this thing before one of the Sailor Senshi shows up to kill it."

"Why?" Bill looked around to make sure the cops weren't listening to him, but they were too busy listening to the reverberating 'thump' noises that seemed to be coming from further upstairs. "Me and Donna met up with Sailor Moon and her whole crew there, we think they're all right. Their guy, Tuxy-Man, had healing hands like Hotaru did, I woulda bled to death otherwise."

"Well, maybe you met Sailor Moon. Nadine and I met Uranus and Neptune, and they're not so friendly. We know they're after Hotaru, we know they want to kill her, they know we're involved with her, and they shoot magic balls of death at people they don't like. If they come in here to kill a daimon and they find out we're here, they might very well blow the doors off the holding cells and take us back to wherever evil Sailor Senshi torture people for information."

"So you think we tell the cops we can kill the daimon, they let us up, and we run like hell."

"No, we're going to kill it. We're not going to leave a monster rampaging around."

"Good, because if you didn't say that, I was gonna."

"We'll hang back until either Moon or Uranus shows up, and if it's Uranus, we get the hell out of here through the parking garage."

They crept up another staircase. The sounds were getting louder, and they could now pick out speech, though the gunfire had stopped. Bill tapped Nadine on the shoulder. "Hey. Phil told me he called Pallas, you wanna be Vesta or Juno?"

She didn't even look at him. "I don't care."

"...Hotaru's going to be fine. You'll see her again."

"And how the hell do you know that?"

"She's a survivor."

"Damn it, no she isn't!" Nadine shouted, and everyone froze and looked at her. "No, she isn't," she whispered. "That's just something people say about anyone regardless of who they are. She's not a survivor. She is a scared, lonely, depressed, hurt little girl who can't stand her own life. She needs someone to be there for her and keep her safe from herself and she doesn't have that. Don't you tell me she's a survivor. She doesn't want to survive."

"Yeah." He sighed. "I know. And I shouldn't say she'll be fine because she isn't fine now. She's scared and alone and depressed and hurt and she doesn't wanna keep going, but she will. She won't let herself do otherwise because she just knows she's not allowed to stop. I know I'm not supposed to be the smart one here, but, just trust me on this. I said she was a soldier and I meant it. She'll hate it but she won't stop until this whole thing is over. And then you'll be there for her."

"I just hope I'll be enough. Poor girl has been through so much..."

"But you love her, right?"

Nadine was a bit taken aback. "Uh... yeah. I do. I love her. It's weird to say it like that. I just met her."

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Then I think she really will be okay."

She smiled, at first she tried to hide it, but she decided not to bother. "You sound like some sappy Disney movie, but, fine. I'll be Vesta, then."

He snapped his fingers. "Damn, I was hoping you'd be Juno. I don't wanna be the one named after the capital of Alaska."

∙

The blue Daimon-Venus gasped in shock. Several buckshot pellets were embedded in her shin, looking like she'd tripped in a driveway, but that's not what had shocked her. She stood up over Sailor Moon's dazed form and pointed at Kher-Aya in Sailor Venus's trademark 'admonish evildoers' pose. "How dare you shoot a pure and innocent girl like Sailor Moon? How dare you attack my friend!"

Kher-Aya flip-cocked his gun again. He'd reloaded downstairs, but he was still getting low on ammo. "What in the hell are you babbling about, daimon?"

"I am the Pretty Soldier, Sailor Venus! And in the name of Venus, I will punish YOU!" She spread her feet over two different stairs to brace herself to fire. "Venus Crescent BEAM!"

A streak of golden light erupted from the daimon's fingertips and struck the kinori square in the center of his forehead, dissipating with no visible effect. His eye twitched, he ground his teeth, and there were a lot of teeth there to grind. "I would like it," he said matter-of-factly, "if I had just ONE minion -- just one! -- whom I could TELL to do something, and they would DO it in the manner I prescribed."

Daimon-Venus frowned. "So you can ward off my magic? Unlucky for you, I know Krav Maga! En Garde!" Tuxedo Kamen knew that not only did the real Venus not know Krav Maga, but that the thing this daimon was doing looked nothing like it, but he wasn't going to correct her.

"Just do what I say! Like minions are supposed to do!" Kher-Aya spun out of the way of a kick and smacked Daimon-Venus across the knees with his tail. "Not get distracted or think they're a Senshi or decide someone forgot to mention a clause..." He bounced backwards and balanced on his tail for a second to avoid a sweep kick, then smashed her across the nose with his gun. "...that they should actually coordinate so they don't just stand there and get shot down!" She threw a punch, but she had to lean forward too far to strike at his head and he easily grabbed her wrist, rolled backward, and sent her somersaulting over him into the wall. "WHY DOES EVERYONE BUT ME IN THIS HORRID CESSPIT HAVE TO BE SO DAMNABLY INCOMPETENT!"

He stood over Daimon-Venus, panting. She was upside-down and on her back against the wall, but she looked none the worse for wear, her nose wasn't even bleeding. And she had managed to spin Kher-Aya around so his back was now facing Kamen. The roses wouldn't work, he'd proven that, but being smashed across the back of the head might... His chest hurt, his breathing was tight, and his left arm wasn't as responsive as it should have been, but he rose to his feet. He applied his healing power to himself as Usagi as quickly as he could, gauged the right length to extend his cane in mid swing, and as soon as Daimon-Venus found her feet again he plastered the kinori across the back of the head. He let out a "WARK!" of surprise and went tumbling, end over end, down half a flight of stairs; when he came to a stop he screamed in a mixture of one part pain to three parts incoherent rage.

Daimon-Venus gasped and pointed at Kamen, ignoring the kinori on the stairs. "How dare you attack such a wise, respected pillar of the kinori community!"

"Oh... no."

"Venus Crescent BEAM!" The laser caught him in the shoulder and though it didn't have the force to knock him down, he had the good sense to do down anyway.

Another silhouette in the doorway. A kinori, and then, another. "What going on?" the one on the left clucked. "We still hang back?"

Sailor Moon looked down at the Moon Rod, then up at the daimon menacing Tuxedo Kamen, then over to the two kinori who had just appeared, and came to a decision. She scrambled up the stairway on her hands and knees, directly toward the one with the gun, and winced in anticipation when she saw it raise its hands to fire.

The bullet flattened on her right above the eyebrow and the force left her feeling like someone was trying to twist her head off like the cap on a soda bottle. Daimon-Venus stopped in her tracks, pointed at the kinori, and shouted "How dare you shoot a pure and innocent girl!"

∙

"That's the youma," said Shinobu.

"That's a daimon," said Philip.

"And that's two kinori with it," said Donna. "Oh, by the way, we didn't get a chance to tell you, but the kinori and the Pharaoh I'm guessing are on the same team now."

"I gathered."

Two white-scale kinori with handguns were flanking a daimon, the size of an adolescent girl, with a pink carapace adorned with glittery Hello Kitty stickers, holding one hand to her ear and talking loudly as she moved from office to office and flipped over desks. One of the kinori had a rose stem sticking out of his eye, and he picked at it whenever the other two weren't looking.

"Looks to be about half the size of the other ones we saw."

"Me and B-- uh, Juno saw another one this size before. Oh, if we see one that looks like a pink me with night vision goggles, that's made out of my little card scrambler, I want it back."

Shinobu held up his hand. "You don't have to keep using the names. We know there's no such thing as Sailor Ceres, you got let out because you have fought these things before and that's more experience than us."

"I'm going to keep saying Sailor Ceres anyway, because it's fun. Buzzkill."

The three invaders hadn't noticed them yet, and were too busy talking with each other to really look. "Why look under desks?" one of them clucked. "Prisoner not gonna be there."

"Uh-huh? No, get out. He didn't! Oh, hang on sweetie." The daimon paused her conversation with her unseen partner and turned to the kinori. "I'm being thorough, okay? So, like, how about you shut your beak or your snout or your whatever it is you have, and you let me work?"

"Not thorough! Wasting time! This place is big!"

"Yeah, and I'm gonna run through all of it, all right? And maybe, like, maybe your little dude got out and he hid under a desk so they wouldn't find him, you ever think of that?"

"He would hear us and come out! Not wait for us to turn over hiding place!"

"And... and maybe you should shut up, okay?" She looked up and touched her hand to her ear. "What? Yeah, I'm still here."

"Who you talking to?"

Minori returned to the group, with another nervous-looking officer who had an armload of tools. "Hey. This is Officer Kaname. His radio doesn't work either."

Bill rubbed his hands together. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, did you hit up the evidence locker like I told you to?"

"We got you the high-power cutting implements you asked for, but I'm not giving you back your rifle. You're lucky enough we let you out and are giving you a rotary saw. An illegal sniper rifle is where I draw the line."

"Hey! That rifle is my legal property and my arrest was unlawful. I expect it returned."

"Well you're not getting it, make do with the rotary saw or start shooting pixie dust out of your hands, 'Sailor Juno'!"

"Children, children!" Philip put out his arms and made a 'simmer down' gesture. "Control yourselves."

Kaname looked down at the load in his hands. "We also have a power drill, a motorized hedge clipper, aaand some extension cords."

Philip blinked. "We have to plug this stuff in?"

Donna rolled her eyes and pointed between herself and Bill. "No, WE have to plug this stuff in." Pause. "Wait, we have to plug this stuff in?"

"It's not my fault nobody committed a crime where a gas-powered chainsaw was evidence, you're lucky we have this much on hand!"

"Whatever, whatever! Gimme one of those cords." Donna peeked round the corner; the daimon and kinori were nowhere to be seen, but she heard them from another office. "Okay, the kinori can be taken out with gunfire, but you're better off at close range. Vesta and what's-your-face," she pointed at Minori, "come with me with the drill. Juno, you plug in the saw over here. I'm gonna try and garrote one of them with the cord, you guys take a few shots at them when I do and we'll see if we can split them up."

"...I'll give you twenty bucks if I can be Ceres and you get to be Juno."

Donna was already gone, around the corner. They sat there, Bill holding the saw, waiting for an indicator it was time to attack, and they didn't have to wait long.

"Should go back! Tell others this here!" said the one without the stem in his eye.

"Tuh!" rejoined the daimon. "They can figure it out themselves. Not like it's hidden or anything."

"Why don't you CALL one and tell him?"

"Because? I'm talking to Keiko?"

"You don't know anyone named GACK--" Donna yanked the lizard around the corner, pulling them both out of sight, and Shinobu squeezed off three shots before he got out of the way and let the 'professionals' do their work.

"What? Oh no you did not -- I'll have to call you back Keiko, someone just shot me! Click!" The daimon actually said the word 'click' before mincing in the direction of the shot, short little steps as if she were wearing high heels. The remaining kinori ducked into the office they'd just left. "You get back here!" the daimon cried, insulted. "You do not just shoot Ino-Kia and run away!"

Bill didn't understand what it was saying, but he could get a vague idea that it wasn't happy. It was even less happy when it walked into view and he swung a rotary saw at its exposed pink neck. The gyroscope effect of the spinning blade threw off his aim, and he only managed to connect with her shoulder; a plume of yellow sparks sprayed out of the contact site, accompanied by an ear-splitting grinding sound, punctuated occasionally with the 'TINGG!' of a sawtooth flying off.

Ino-Kia, and everyone who understood Japanese got that one, grabbed at his wrist and he pulled away rather than let her get a hold on him. Bill looked at the blade, it was warped, dented, dulled, and missing teeth. Then he looked at her shoulder, there was a cut about half an inch deep going into it, seeping yellow fluid. "Damn," he muttered. "That has got to be a hell of a scythe."

"Oh. My God. Keiko, you are not going to believe what just happened," the daimon said, turning to Bill, not acknowledging the fact that she'd already 'hung up'. "This guy just tried to come at me with a power tool." She spun out of the way of his next swing and elbowed him in the solar plexus as one fluid motion, never really looking at him. "I know, right? Do people still DO that, or does this guy think he's Captain Supermarket, or what?" She punched him in the stomach and swept his legs out from under him, letting his ass meet the carpet, and kicked him once for good measure. "Ooh, you should see his hair, too. It's like Christophe threw up on him."

The rose-stem kinori poked its head out of the office, clucking out a call to its comrade in its native tongue. It had only been a second, but they were right next to each other when they heard gunfire, so they-- and now there was a gun in his face, held by the human woman they'd attacked with the daimon earlier today. It put its claws up, slowly, the way humans did to indicate surrender. "Hey, this one surrendered!" she called to her comrades. "Do we have any of those plastic--" here she turned to look down the hall, seeing to her dismay the daimon was NOT dead, right before the kinori slapped the gun out of her hand, raked up the inside of her arm with its claws, and smacked her in the legs with its tail.

Kinori claws aren't large or fearsome, really comparable to especially large human fingernails, but being raked by fingernails still hurts when you aren't expecting it. "Damn it!" Donna shouted. "Never believe the goddamn lizards!" The kinori dove to the side to grab Donna's gun, and Donna dove forward to grab the kinori's gun, and they both rolled into a crouched firing stance, facing each other. The kinori's gun wasn't made for his hands, and it took him a moment to aim; enough time for Nadine to kick him in the back of the neck and send him sprawling for Minori to finish off.

Philip growled at the plug on the hedge trimmers -- it wouldn't fit in the outlet without an adapter, and the daimon was kicking the living Hell out of Bill. He pointed at Shinobu and ordered, "You, get the shotgun ready," and to Kaname, "Grab something heavy and follow me." Then with a sigh, knowing how much shit he was going to catch for it, he grabbed a swivel chair, held it out in front of him, and charged at the daimon full-bore.

He hit her square in the back and pushed her forward, tripping her up on her own ankles. She placed out her hands to break her fall and avoid kissing the floor, landing in more of a sit-up position. "Ow! Keiko, they're ganging up on me now! No, not like that, get your mind out of the gutter girl! No, it's no problem, they're a bunch of losers." She rolled over onto her back, got ready to spring back up to her feet, and got a computer monitor smashed in her face.

"Lizards are down!" Donna crowed. She checked the safety on one of the two pistols she was holding and tossed it to Bill. "We found these, we're keeping them."

"You can go on telling yourself that," Shinobu retorted.

"Argue... later!" Philip said, lugging a mini-fire safe. He let it go on the daimon's head, it pushed her down but had no more visible impact on her flesh than a chunk of Styrofoam. "Monster now!"

"Yeah, yeah, now they're just throwing crap on me. No, not like crap crap, like junk and stuff. Hold on, I'll ask." The daimon's hand shot out and snagged Philip's ankle, then yanked him down to meet her. "Keiko wants to know if you guys... Shut up, I'm saying it, quit giggling! ...if you guys are professional idiots or just gifted amateurs?" She rolled over him, broken glass and plastic falling off her face, planting an elbow on his chest and putting all her weight on it as she rose to her feet.

"Hey!" Nadine shouted, standing with one hand on her hip, Donna and Kaname nowhere in sight. "Don't talk to Sailor Ceres like that!"

"The other girl was Sailor Ceres," Shinobu corrected. "He's Sailor Pallas."

"Like I said, don't talk to Sailor Pallas like that!"

"You're totally not gonna believe this." Ino-Kia giggled. "They got little code names for themselves! And they don't even remember what they are! I know, what is this, the third grade? Yeah, just like that!"

Philip managed to right himself, and at that point Nadine screamed, "RUN! Run like hell!" turned, and did just that, right on the heels of Shinobu. Philip and Bill broke off in the other direction, and Ino-Kia glanced between them, swore, and ran after Nadine.

"Yeah, yeah, they're running away. Yes, I'm chasing them, duh! I'm gonna get the one with the bowl cut first." The daimon rounded one corner, then another, gaining on her target, then when she came upon the stairs down to the first floor, an extension cord that Shinobu and Nadine had easily walked over was pulled tight right at shin-level. She tripped on the cord and went sailing forwards into the staircase, flailing and squawking like a duck in an eight-year-old's arms. She hit the first riser with her teeth, and though they didn't break they did bend inward. She rolled downward, smacking her elbows and knees and chin and chest all into each other and into every other part. When she came to a stop at the bottom, she was scraped, bleeding more yellow fluid from several minor cuts, and letting out an ultraviolet streak of profanity that would have melted 'Keiko's' phone, if she existed.

"I cannot BELIEVE she fell for that," said Shinobu. "We could have done that."

"Yeah, it looks like that to a layman." Donna couldn't believe the daimon fell for that either, but wasn't about to let on.

"Okay, seriously? I am starting to get pissed off now." Above her, Nadine leaned over the guardrail and dropped a potted plant into her face. "I'm, ptth, ptth--" she spat dirt out of her mouth, "I am not EVEN playing any more."

"Somebody go get the guys, I'm gonna keep finding crap to drop on her," Donna said, "and Vesta, you go plug in this drill."

Ino-Kia swatted potting soil off of her face and hair, spitting even after there was nothing left in her mouth. "Dirt! Dropped a potted plant on me!" She grabbed the frond and felt it before tossing it off of her. "No, it's real. They probably rented it." Just as she started to get up, another rented fan palm came crashing down on her, and all she could say was "Damn it! Stop DOING that! How many of those plants do you have up there?"

Nadine walked back towards the stairs, drill in hand, only to have it yanked out of her hand. "Uh, Ceres? Problem. This thing will only go 25 feet, I can't get back to the stairs. And you broke the other one strangling the lizard."

Donna glared at Kaname as he handed her the fire safe. "You couldn't get a cordless drill?"

"We didn't have a cordless drill!"

"Well, just go down the back stairs..." She dropped the fire safe and imagined it would whistle on the way down like in the Looney Tunes cartoons. "I'll keep 'er pinned here and... Crap, she got up!" She pulled the gun out of her waistband and flicked off the safety. "Go around, we'll meet down there!" She cursed herself as she descended, wondering why the hell she hadn't looked down before dropping the safe.

She hit the first floor, rounded the corner, and immediately got clotheslined across the throat by the daimon's outstretched arm. "Ha, got 'er! Oh, that looks like it hurts, too."

Donna swept at the daimon's legs, she hopped out of the way. The daimon stomped at Donna, she rolled back to her feet. They traded quick exploratory blows, then Ino-Kia grabbed Donna's wrist with one hand and with her other hand, drove the base of her palm into Donna's nose. Blood sprayed all over the walls, the carpet, and the two of them. "Ha! Oh, yeah, just like you said, blood EVERYWHERE! That's great!"

Donna grabbed her face with both hands, trying to staunch the blood loss. "That shit HURTS!" she shouted, and with her blood-slicked fingers she grabbed the daimon's wrist and bent it back much further than even daimon joints were meant to go.

"Ow, ow, okay, lemme go, ow, ow, ow, ow!" the daimon shouted, and Donna guessed the meaning even though she didn't speak Japanese. She twisted the daimon's arm around behind her, spat blood on the back of her neck, and shoved her forward, dropping her head in an open doorway. Blood dribbling off of her chin and smearing on her palms, she slammed the door again and again into the daimon's head, splintering the wood in a depression the shape of her head.

"OW! No, I don't know, she just OW! went like totally ax-crazy OW! on me! You OW! said she was supposed to OW! scream and pass out OW! or die or something, not OW! go totally batshit OW! batshit locOW!" The door broke around the daimon's head, and Donna stepped back to give Bill room to beat the daimon with a floor lamp a few times. She grabbed it and tossed it to the side, he stepped back, and the two of them emptied their guns into her, and threw the empty weapons at her for good measure. She caught one, flung it back at Bill, and nailed him in the forehead.

The daimon wheezed and spat out a mouthful of bright yellow blood. The punishment she had been given was clearly accumulating on her now, she was covered in bruises, cuts, and lesions. "I hate you guys..." she said. She tried to rise to her feet but her wrist slipped in a pool of swirled yellow and red blood. "I hate you guys so goddamn much."

Bill and Donna were panting almost as bad as Ino-Kia was, Donna holding an ice pack to her nose, and Phil felt kind winded just looking at them. "If Nadine... can't kill that thing with a drill..." Bill gasped for air, "we're gonna... gonna have to call in an airstrike or something."

"It took Uranus and Neptune three shots to kill one of these." Phil nodded at the daimon. "Bigger than this one. Mother of God they must be like human Howitzers!"

"Hey... Hey, guys... This is Ino-Kia," she said to nobody in the room. She started to crawl forward on her hands, slowly, grabbing at Donna's legs and missing by a mile."I was on the fourth floor... There was one of those... like, those gerbil tube bridges there... and there's like a whole other building that..." Donna calmly walked backwards to stay out of the daimon's reach, and the daimon kept crawling toward her. "You know, I think it's where we're supposed to be looking for, you know, the thing... and there's some assholes over here and I'd appreciate it if you tore their arms off and beat them to death with 'em. Okay? Okay. Bai bai. Click."

"Either she's talking to her imaginary friend again," Phil translated, "Or there are more of these nearby and she called in reinforcements. I would have told you to stop her if we even could."

"...hate you guys..."

"And she hates us."

Donna wiped more blood off her face. "Yeah, well, we hate her too."

"I found an outlet!" Nadine called, holding the power drill proudly. Donna nodded and stepped on the daimon's back to pin her down. Nadine saw the pool of yellow blood and the crawling, wounded, hateful creature, winced, and knelt over. It was a monster, clearly evil, clearly enjoyed causing pain, and if it wasn't killed while weakened it would probably regenerate back into a ball of bulletproof terror, and Hotaru and Sailor Moon and whoever all the others are could kill them and it was clearly right... but, she still couldn't put a drill to a humanoid creature's head and bore into it. So Philip did it for her while she and Donna closed their eyes and Bill closed one. The creature died and its mass vanished, Donna's foot was suddenly in midair and when it fell she crushed the pink Hello Kitty cell phone the daimon reverted back to. Around them, the pools of yellow blood started to smoke as they dissolved.

"And..." Philip looked up to Shinobu and Minori, "That's how that gets done."

The radios on the cops' belts flared to life. "...ficer Tsukihito, I don't know if anyone can hear me, the metropolitan police headquarters are under attack, it's, there's some kind of monsters, most of the people here are behaving unusually, they appear immune to gunfire, I've barricaded myself in on the eighth floor of the offices..."

"Tsukihito, this is Minori, we've just killed one of those things over at the station, Have the monsters moved recently?"

"Minori? Man, I'm glad to hear someone, the radios were all out for what felt like forever and everyone is gone! And I don't know if they're moving, I can't see them, but I don't hear them moving around any more."

Shinobu puffed his cheeks and blew. "Well, that was nice... think you can do that a few more times? If we help out more?"

"Oh sweet mother of God no."

Upstairs, they heard stomping noises. "Okay, okay, let me catch my breath, think of a plan..." Donna said, wiping he blood off again. "Maybe if we set up some kind of ambush..." They heard daimons descending, and without saying a word all started to walk towards the back and the stairs down to the parking garage.

"Maybe we could electrocute them or something, maybe that would work?" Nadine asked

"I dunno, maybe? Me and Donna didn't see any Senshi with electrical attacks, so I dunno."

"Jupiter's the one with lightning, she uses Sparkling Wide Pressure." Minori glanced around and coughed. "Or, so I heard."

They were on the first floor and though they couldn't see the front lobby they could faintly hear it echoing off the walls. They could hear it when a daimon said "Stairs are for losers, losers!" and shortly afterward the WHUMP associated with a daimon jumping off a balcony into a first-floor lobby.

"Okay, okay, electricity. Have to shock a whole bunch of daimons. If it will work without being magic."

"And if we leave they go down into the holding cells and puree all the high school kids." Nadine shook her head. "We're gonna die, aren't we?"

"No, we can pull this one out..." said Donna, trailing off to hear the sounds of combat. A strike, a dodge, a blast, and a demise.

And then, faint but distinct: "The herald of a new age, I am Sailor Uranus!"

And after that: "And I am Sailor Neptune, appearing elegantly."

Philip and Shinobu looked at each other. "We need to get the hell up out of here," Phil said. "Uranus and Neptune are here. They fight daimons, and that's good. Remember what I said about human Howitzers and how they want to kill us?"

Nadine continued. "And how you know there's bigger stuff in play here than weapons charges and you've got bigger problems than us as proven by Miss Cell Phone?"

Shinobu nodded. "Yeah, an honor to work with you, Asteroid Senshi, and I look forward to explaining your awesome Senshi powers to my supervisors as well as all of the exciting doujinshi Minori will undoubtedly draw of you and your wacky adventures with the Actual Senshi, but we've got a building full of monsters, you're not getting that rifle back, and we're getting the hell out of here!" And at that all of them, even Bill, ran down the stairs.

∙

Sailor Moon slurped her paper cone of water, slowly, never taking an eye off the kinori sitting in front of her. Its lips weren't really suited to drinking out of a cup, so it had to awkwardly flip upwards and splash the contents into his mouth, but while he did this he kept at least one eye on Sailor Moon and Chiba Mamoru next to her, laying on a table, at all times.

In the fracas, Mamoru had taken a really nasty hit from the boxing-daimon (named, appropriately, Boxing) that knocked him out of both his Tuxedo Kamen transformation and consciousness in general. He could transform back and heal himself, he'd only been out for a few minutes, but they had to wait out the 'recharge' time you had to go through to change back into a Senshi. And they were drinking water from the water cooler that a daimon Sailor Venus had dragged over to them, and staring at a kinori but making no aggressive move.

"You feeling okay, dude?" Daimon-Venus asked of Mamoru. He nodded weakly and she continued pacing around the floor. Moon had been worried that even if the daimon wasn't trying to kill them with lasers, she would kill them with love and medical malpractice like 'Nurse Minako', but so far she'd been patient to let Moon deal with it.

It was weird, Usagi thought, that a daimon could think it was a Sailor Senshi, and that there was absolutely no inner conflict. She liked Sailor Moon, she liked the kinori and the daimons, and the way she resolved this was the that last person to attack either one of them was the evildoer, simple as that. Which was why she was in the room as a kinori and they weren't attacking each other, because as soon as one of them made an attack, D-Venus would kick the hell out of them. Moon knew she and Mamoru couldn't beat a kinori, so she had to tell D-Venus to stay here and patrol. Moon wasn't about to start summoning youma and wearing an evil red dress and driving a hatchback, but she had to admit this daimon was pretty nice even if she did act kinda like a mental patient, and wondered if the others would object to keeping her around.

"Ooh!" D-Venus cooed at no visible stimulus. "Oh, you guys hear that?" Moon and the kinori both shook their heads. "Oh, turns out we're in the wrong building, they got a gerbil tube on the next floor to go over there, and that's where we're all supposed to be." She pointed to the kinori, and then to Mamoru. "Can you keep an eye on him while me and Sailor Moon head next door?"

The kinori nodded and grinned, and Sailor Moon spoke out. "No! He's getting worse, I think. He... needs a nurse."

"Oh! Well, did we bring any nurses with us?"

"Of course!" Moon nodded and smiled. "Sailor Venus, you're an RN!"

Mamoru glared at her.

"Of course I am!" D-Venus smacked her head. "That was ditzy of me. Okay, we'll stay here, and you," she pointed at the kinori, "go next door. We'll catch up!"

Sailor Moon waved to the kinori as he left.

∙

Twenty-nine seconds after the four Hoffmann agents fled to the garage, Hotaru and Sailor Chibi-Moon arrived at the front door of the station. The two of them saw Uranus and Neptune and gasped in unison, but didn't turn around fast enough to avoid Uranus and Neptune seeing them. Hotaru held out her Glaive and Chibi-Moon took a defensive stance, Uranus readied her Sword and Neptune her Mirror. They stared at each other in a tense stand-off, neither willing to move until Sailor Uranus got shot in the back of the head.

She whirled around to see who had fired and Neptune addressed the two flatly. "Let's just agree that whatever it is that we will do to each other, we will do it when we're not overrun by daimons."

Chibi-Moon looked to Hotaru, who nodded sluggishly, and the two Outer Senshi leapt to the second floor from a standing start. There were five daimons here, and at least twelve kinori, and the two Outer Senshi were in rare form, Uranus slashing the magic-resistant kinori to pieces with her Space Sword and Neptune damaging daimons and providing suppressing fire.

Hotaru and Chibi-Moon crept forward with nowhere near the speed of Uranus and Neptune. Chibi-Moon lead them and Hotaru followed, looking mostly at her feet. They found a hallway sprayed in blood, both normal red human blood and smoking yellow blood, but not much else as they investigated the area. Hotaru was lethargic and had to be prompted to do most things, and Chibi-Usa knew exactly why -- she was wired and anxious and paranoid for the same reason.

When they got to the interrogation rooms, one of the doors was rattling while someone on the other side said "Let me out! What's going on there?" Hotaru sighed deeply, but she didn't have to be prodded to slice the doorknob away and let the door spill open.

Inside was what Chibi-Moon saw as a weary-looking man in a rumpled shirt, stained tie, and black plastic glasses, and Hotaru saw as a short grey alien with a big head and big eyes and the same stained tie. "Nakami?"

He looked between the two costumed girls, confused. "Have we met before?"

Chibi-Moon started to say something, probably to keep their secret identity secret, but Hotaru cut her off. "Yes we did. I'm Hotaru. Sailor Saturn."

He squinted. "What? I... ohhh, ohhh, I think I see it. Hotaru, you're okay? Nadine is going to be very happy to see you. She was worried."

"I'm... sorry."

"Don't be sorry, she..." He rubbed his forehead. "Can I continue this in a bit? I have to pass out now." And at that his eyes shut and he toppled forward, his human illusion melting before Chibi-Moon's eyes. Hotaru dropped the Glaive against the wall and grabbed his head before it hit the ground.

"How do you know a fraal?" Chibi-Moon wondered aloud.

∙

"This car is magic," Bill said, caressing the leather interior of the 2000GT.

"You know, at this point in the chop-busting procedure," said Donna underneath an ice pack, "I would say you are stupid and this belonged to a cop. But screw it, I have seen magic cell-phone demons and magic schoolgirls, this is a magic car."

"And it handles great, too," Philip said from behind the wheel.

"The car finds those who are in need of a quick getaway, spirits them to freedom, and then whoosh!" Bill fanned his hands beside his face. "It flies off to the next imperiled soul. The legend... of Magicar."

"Coming in summer '96. A Steven Spielberg production. No children under thirteen admitted without parent, guardian, or Sailor Senshi." Phil said in his best 'fine print' voice.

"Well, it looks like someone tried to ground the magic car." Nadine leaned forward and dug out a long metal object. "See? The Club. Keys are still in it." She examined the keyring and turned over several rubber keychains: two car shapes with the phone numbers of garages on them, a turquoise violin advertising the Tokyo Philharmonic, a boot with the order number for an Italian restaurant, and a beige oval that really caught her interest. "Huh. 'If found, please return to Tenoh Haruka and Kaiou Michiru,' and then there's an address."

"Damn it!" Donna punched the back of the seat.

"What, what'd I do?"

"The people who own this car have names now, and they probably just got it back at the police station, and she feels bad taking their stuff."

"...shut up, Bill."

"So what?" Philip shrugged. "This car is easily identifiable anyway, we have to get rid of it. We'll stash it somewhere, go to the address on the keychain... it's actually pretty close. We'll show up and tell them where we put it, say we FOUND it, and then we run like hell. I'm driving in random directions right now, it's not as if we have anywhere else to go."

"That seems like a bunch of hassle and a bunch of risk to alleviate Donna's conscience," Bill said.

"Well, we've already established this is a magic car. You remember those folk tales where Zeus takes the form of a filthy beggar and asks a rich king for money..."

"And the guy says no and then Zeus throws off the disguise and smites the piss out of him?"

"Yeah. I remember those too. We already have magical princesses, magic space kingdoms, witches, and demon summoners, I think we ought to play by the magical rules." He shifted in his seat as he took a U-turn, to point towards Haruka and Michiru's apartment building. "For safety's sake."

∙ ∙ ∙

The daimons and kinori had been cleared away, and the Sailor Senshi now squared off on the helipad on top of the building, though Tuxedo Kamen couldn't quite recall how they got up there. One daimon had escaped; Sailor Moon told Daimon-Venus that they'd found what they were looking for, and the impostor Senshi had given her a hug and vanished off into the night to fight crime. Moon didn't know if she should tell the others, or if she'd even see the daimon again, but she's pretty sure she did the right thing.

Uranus and Neptune stood at each other's side, Talisman's drawn. Hotaru stood in front of them, gaze averted, point of her Glaive stuck in the landing tarmac. Chibi-Moon stood in front of her, arms spread and lip quivering in defiance, and to either side were Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Kamen. Kamen was cradling the unconscious Itohiro Nakami like an infant.

"Sailor Saturn," said Uranus.

"The Soldier of Ruin," said Neptune.

Hotaru wished she had some powerful and enigmatic rejoinder, but she didn't, and she was in no condition to think of one. All she could say was "...yeah."

"You're not going to hurt her!" Chibi-Moon shouted. "She's our friend, that's all that matters!"

"Chibi-Usa... don't, you don't need..."

Michiru inhaled slowly and set her jaw as if she were about to say something painful. "...you're right. We're not going to hurt her."

"You're not?" Moon said happily.

"No they're not," said Hotaru, and she looked up from the floor and into Haruka's eyes. "I said I was the only one who can save the world from the Silent One. If they kill me now, I can't die to defeat him."

"Yes." Uranus looked away, unable to meet Hotaru's gaze and lie to her. "Yes, that's why."

Neptune saw Moon open her mouth to start an entire idealistic argument they didn't need and cut her off. "But whatever our reason is, we'll have to work together, and will have a chance to argue later."

"Good. Look in your mirror, tell me where Ami is."

"Saturn..." Moon asked, "what happened to Ami?"

"They took her!" She slapped at the air and the Glaive vanished without her touching it. "One of the Men in Black took her. Statler or Waldorf. I couldn't stop him, he could just ignore everything we hit him with, he could blink around wherever he wanted."

Without a threat to her friend to focus on, the floodgates opened up and Chibi-Moon's panic spilled out. "He, he bound her up and he said he was taking her to an evil crystal and he was going to make her evil too, like he didn't care if we knew because we couldn't stop him! And anytime we hit him it just went right through him and there wasn't anything we could do!" She ran to Moon's legs and held on to them fast, tears streaming from her cheeks.

"Men in Black?" Uranus didn't recognize that as part of any kind of prophecy, and the fact that the surface of Neptune's mirror was a uniform black when she tried to scry on Ami's location didn't help.

"I saw him before! I knew they were after me! I saw what they could do!" Hotaru fell backward and sat down, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her Sailor Saturn costume flickered and fell from her like shredded wrapping paper, showing her plain black clothes underneath. "He could read minds and teleport and I didn't say anything! This is my fault!"

"Hotaru! This isn't your--"

"Don't!" Hotaru cut Moon off, sobbing. "Don't tell me it's not my fault! I should have told you something and I didn't, I should have let you all know you were in danger and I didn't and you didn't do anything to prevent it because I was stupid, and I put Ami and Chibi-Usa in danger just by being there without more backup because I knew he would, would come for me and anyone with me!" She choked up a little. "I shouldn't have even stayed at the shrine!"

Uranus knelt in front of her and reared back her hand to slap the girl across the face, but found she couldn't, and grabbed Hotaru's cheeks, yanking them to force her to make eye contact. Moon moved to stop her, but Neptune warned her away. "It doesn't matter if it's your fault!" Uranus barked. "It happened and the only thing we care about is what happens next. Don't tell me how you screwed up, tell me how you're not going to screw up again, and that's going to be how we find Ami. Okay?"

Hotaru nodded.

"Okay. Now, stand up." Uranus let go and stood herself. "Did he say where he took her?"

"Back to 'his place'. He said he had an 'evil crystal', but that was all."

"There are a lot of those," Moon said to some dismay.

"And what do you know about them? How do they use the abilities you said?"

Hotaru looked off to the side and bobbed back and forth, thinking. "I think they can step into one shadow and out of another, I don't know how far. They can read minds, but, one at a time, and not mine, and they don't like me because of it. And if they see an attack coming it just goes right through them."

"So if they were surrounded they couldn't use their abilities effectively?" Hotaru nodded. "So if we remain in large groups we should be fine." She nodded again. "And when we sleep tonight we should do so in a group and keep people awake as watch in case one comes by to abduct us in our sleep. Correct?"

"Yeah. That's what we should have done."

"So that's what we will do. And if we keep pursuing the Pharaoh, we will find Ami as well. And since that's what we're going to do, it does not matter if we cannot find her, we know she will be brought to us."

"And then we can make her better like you did to me, right?" asked Chibi-Moon.

"I see no reason why we wouldn't try to recover her." Hotaru and Chibi-Moon didn't exactly look elated, but they looked a bit happier, and Uranus nodded to Moon as if to say 'see, this is how people accomplish their goals using things other than blind unthinking idealism.'

"Venus, Mars and Jupiter are underground right now, so we can't use the communicators, but when they come out where should we meet?"

"Well..." Neptune sighed like she knew she was about to say something she was going to regret, "our apartment has a lot of space we don't even use, if it means the safety of the mission..."

"No!" Uranus said. "We can't go back to our place yet. My keychain was in the car when the daimon stole it and that has our address on it, remember? The Death Busters probably have it staked out right now."

"We can stay with me," Kamen said, "I have some room I don't use. If someone doesn't mind sleeping on a cot in the kitchen."

"Good," said Haruka, "Now we know at least we have somewhere to sleep." She looked down from Kamen's face to what he was holding. "Now, what's with the sleeping alien?"

∙ ∙ ∙

"Why does finding anything in Tokyo have to be such a pain in the ass?" Bill muttered as the four of them walked out of the elevator.

"Because they don't have street names," Nadine said, "I thought we went through this."

"Yeah, I was still wondering why they did that."

They came to a stop outside the apartment they were seeking, and Philip shushed them. "Okay. We're here. We don't know this was their car, or if they stole it like us, so, I am going to ask them what kind of car they own in my most authoritative voice. This is a really, really nice building, with very wealthy, very high-class people that are miles above all of us, and I'm going to have to ask that you two," he pointed at Bill and Donna, "not say anything, and stay out of sight unless something goes wrong. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Okay." Phil rapped his knuckles on the door, then noticed the apartment actually had a doorbell and pressed that. After another thirty seconds, he pressed it again, and again after another wait.

"Looks like nobody's home."

"No, no, I think I hear something..." He pressed his ear to the door, then rapped on it again and called out in Japanese, "Kaiou-san? Tenou-san? Are you in there, is everything all right?" No response, and Phil started fiddling with the keys. "I'm going in there, I hear someone, I don't want little old lady Kaiou-slash-Zeus dying of a heart attack on the kitchen floor while I walk away... here we go!"

The door swung open, he flicked on the lights, and whistled. "This place is gargantuan..." he said, "Oh, I think that noise was the TV... aaaand everyone get in here anyway."

"Wait, what's going on, why are we going into these people's apartme-- oh my God this place really is gargantuan." Nadine whistled. "This place would cost a fortune in Boise, they have to be laying out like a hundred grand a week!"

The four of them filed in the the vast, palatial living room. Phil closed the door behind them, then pulled a framed photo off a bookshelf that he could see from the door and presented it to Nadine. "Do you recognize these two people?"

Nadine scrutinized the picture, squinted, lifted a pair of imaginary glasses. "Uh, a woman with greenish-blue hair, a blonde dude, and they're leaning on a yellow car that I gather is the 'magicar'. I'm guessing she is either Michiru or Haruka, and then he's her boyfriend?"

"Oh, right, right, you wouldn't see the... Okay, what if I told you they were both women..."

"I'd ask if there were such a thing as 'drag kings' and suggest Blondie was one of the greats," Bill interjected.

"...because that is Sailor Neptune and that is Sailor Uranus. And yes Bill, there are such things as drag kings. Get your mind out of Idaho for a while."

"Where, I don't... Oh. Oh!" She handed the picture back to Philip; Bill and Donna had never seen Uranus or Neptune face to face and so had to take his word for it. "I see it now. But how do..." Philip grinned, and she punched him in the arm. "Yeah, well, I'm glad I went to that wedding, you know!"

"So this apartment... is owned by people trying to kill Hotaru. The human Howitzers. And we're standing in it why?" asked Donna.

"Because it's not owned by Uranus and Neptune, it's owned by Michiru and Haruka. As in they turn it off before they come in here."

"And one of us is going to be waiting by the door with a sock full of batteries when they come in?" Donna giggled. "Philip Montgomery Akens, you magnificent bastard!"

"I was going to say 'confront, disarm, subdue, and interrogate,' but if you can find that many batteries, sure."

"Plus," Bill called from the kitchen, "If they don't show up, we trash their apartment. They wanna kill a little girl, they don't deserve to get their damage deposit back. Who wants sandwiches, I am going to raid the HELL out this fridge."

---

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

There are Senshi of planets, warriors and guardians of their population and their power. The hearts of stars burn with similar power, but as yet none have come close enough to harness it without being incinerated. A black hole Senshi would theoretically possess magical power hundreds of thousands of times greater then Sailor Moon, but as the magical energy originates inside the singularity it would be unable to escape the black hole's gravitational pull, leaving a Senshi whose transformation sequence would last until the heat death of the universe; constantly approaching completion without ever reaching it. The power of dark matter is harnessed by any practitioner of magic, or anything that passes through a dark matter gateway, or at Progress Level 7 or greater anyone using a dark matter reactor or stardrive.

The most recent WMAP observations have indicates that 4 of the universe is ordinary matter, such as planets, stars, black holes, and clouds of hydrogen or helium. 22 of the universe is dark matter. 74 is dark energy, a vast power source, the cause of the universe's expansion, totally unguarded, free to be tapped by the practitioners of the dark arts and the forces of chaos.

NEW ARCANE MAGIC FE SKILL: ENTROPOMANCY

Name Stat: Cost Entropomancy 13 Ex Timor Ex Nihilo PER 6 Wrack WIL 3 Anchor of Disarray INT 5 Futility of Effort WIL 4 Spatial Stagnation INT 5 Annul the Soul PER 6 Deaf Eye PER 3

Entropomancy is a school of magic that harnesses dark energy to affect the world. Its spells focus on chaos, decay, and destruction. The 'Voynich Manuscript' and 'Eighth Testament of Zoicite', the seminal texts on the subject, both speak of "the decapitated queen upon an empty throne in the cold, dead kingdom [the Eighth Testament uses the phrase 'dark kingdom', eyeless and mindless of the treasures of decay in her empty vault." Entropomancy is always phrased as power stolen from a dead or inattentive ruler, something the user has no right to possess but seizes anyway; nobody, not even the authors, is really sure why.

Entropomancy uses an additional power source beyond FX Energy Points: Life Energy Points (LEP), drained from other sentient living creatures. Each spell except Drain Energy requires a sacrifice of LEP; a Marginal sacrifice is 1 point, an Ordinary sacrifice is 3 points, a Good sacrifice is 7 points, and an Amazing sacrifice is 15 points. Offering a sacrifice greater than what is required gives a cumulative -1 bonus to the skill check, a sacrifice less than required gives a cumulative 3 penalty. Entropomancy practitioners can hold a number of stored LEP equal to three times their Achievement rank, or spend it directly from a nearby friendly youma or Dark Locus.

An Entropomancer may find that he has too many stored LEP and not enough energy to spend them with, or find that the skill he needs for the task is outside Entropomancy's purview. Once per round as a normal action, an Entropomancer may attempt a PER feat check to convert stored LEP to either FX or Psionic energy points, his choice. On an O/G/A success, he gains 2/2/3 energy and loses 5/3/3 LEP. On a Failure, he loses 3 LEP to no effect.

Entropomancy gives unique insight to other reality-bending abilities; a character who has Entropomancy may choose another FX or psionic broad skill he has, he purchases all skills under that broad skill for 1 fewer skill point.

EX TIMOR EX NIHILO (cost 6, PER)  
1 FX Energy Point Good sacrifice This skill cannot be used untrained.

This skill functions exactly as detailed in "Chapter 9: Double Header".

WRACK (cost 3, WIL)  
1 FX Energy Point no sacrifice

Wrack is the basic skill of Entropomancy, and the simplest means of gathering LEP to power other Entropomancy skills, Wrack forcefully steals the life force of other organic sentients. It has a range of 10/20/40. Against targets with no FX or Psionic energy pool, the attack deals d4 1s/d4 2s/d6 2s, and for every 3 Stun damage inflicted, cumulatively, the user gains 1 LEP. Against Adepts, Mindwalkers, or FX or Psionic talents, the attack takes 2/3/4 FX or Psionic energy points (a victim who has both chooses one to be drained) and changes them directly to LEP.

(X) Increased Effect: At rank 4, the stun damage inflicted becomes d4 2s/d6 2s/d8 2s. At rank 7, the energy drain becomes 3/4/5. At rank 10, the stun damage becomes 2d4 2s/2d6 2s/2d8 2s.

ANCHOR OF DISARRAY (cost 5, INT)  
1 FX Energy Point Ordinary sacrifice This skill cannot be used untrained.

Not simply another means of gathering life energy, the Anchor of Disarray sows chaos and turmoil among humanity and corrupts places meant sacred. Anchor of Disarray converts a leypoint, also known as a Crystal Point or Feng Shui Site, into a Dark Locus. Finding a leypoint to corrode is not difficult, they're actually quite common wherever humans or other sentients regularly travel. Finding a leypoint of sufficient quality to be called a Crystal Point or Feng Shui Site, however, is a bit more difficult.

To find a leypoint, make a Lore -- Occult Lore check and an Investigate -- Search check, taking the lower quality result as the quality of the leypoint discovered. If one check fails and one succeeds, the result is a Marginal leypoint; if both fail, no leypoint is discovered. This search, unassisted, takes about 12 hours. In a pinch, an unshielded dark matter reactor always functions as a Marginal leypoint.

Every leypoint has an associated penalty to the skill check to convert it, more powerful leypoints are harder to convert. Conversion takes ten minutes but cannot be interrupted. Dark Loci are empowered, literally, by chaos and strife: a Dark Locus fills with one LEP for every five stun or two wounds, and two LEP for each mortal damage inflicted by and on normal human beings within the Dark Locus's area of effect. Damage inflicted by or on people with Psionic or FX Energy pools does not count, nor does violence directly instigated by the Entropomancer.

To facilitate the charging of a Dark Locus, normal (no FX or psionics) humans within the area of a Dark Locus of Ordinary or better quality gain the Temper flaw as long as they remain in the area. The flaw is at 2 points for Ordinary, 4 points for Good, and 6 points for an Amazing Locus. People already possessing the Temper flaw have it upgraded, but never past 6 points. While the Entropomancer is within the area of effect, he may spend LEP directly from the Dark Locus as if it were his own.

The Dark Locus can be dispelled by anyone with any FX or Psionic talent and three minutes to spare without any special training, so it is a good idea to keep them guarded.

LEYPOINT / DARK LOCUS QUALITY CHART

Quality Difficulty Capacity Radius(m)∙ Marginal 0 20 12 Ordinary 1 40 24 Good 3 80 48 Amazing 5 160 96

∙Increase Radius by 50 when the Locus has half of its LEP capacity filled, and double it when it is filled to capacity.

FUTILITY OF EFFORT (cost 4, WIL)  
1 FX Energy Point Marginal sacrifice This skill cannot be used untrained.

All action is futile, all efforts doomed to failure at the inevitable hand of time and decay. Accomplishment is an illusion, destruction the only constant. Morose, and also the means by which Entropomancers defend from attack. This elemental, fundamental futility is harnessed to doom any effort made against them.

This skill's effect lasts for ten minutes per activation, and increases all the user's resistance modifiers by 1/ 2/ 3, making it more difficult for any skills to be used against him.

(X) Increased Effect: At rank 4, the duration extends to 20 minutes. At rank 6, the resistance modifier bonus becomes 2/ 3/ 4. At rank 8, the duration extends to an hour, and at rank 12, the bonus increases again to 3/ 4/ 5.

SPATIAL STAGNATION (cost 5, INT)  
2 FX Energy Points Ordinary sacrifice This skill cannot be used untrained.

The wise and spiritual say that one is all and all is one, that all places and things are unified. The Entropomancers see this as proof that change, improvement, and motion are impossible, as you're never truly going anywhere.

On using this skill, the Entropomancer marks the point he's standing on. Once in the next 24 hours/72 hours/week (O/G/A) or until he uses the skill again, he may willingly recall himself to the marked point, appearing to flicker and vanish from the place he previously occupied and reappear the place marked. But he didn't really vanish or return anywhere, he's never really moved anywhere.

() Additional Marks: At rank 6, the user can keep two points marked at once. At rank 12, he can manage four.

ANNUL THE SOUL (cost 6, PER)  
1 FX Energy Point Amazing sacrifice This skill cannot be used untrained.

Mind control is an easy and dull task. Thoughts and emotions exist as chemical transmitters in the brain, and direct manipulation of these creates the desired response in the subject. Mesmerism, Illusion, several Faith skills, and even the gardhyi Shadow FX all attempt to control the mind, but the Entropomancer realizes that even though the soul is not a part of the mind, it is still energy, and can still be manipulated.

This skill requires a complex skill check; the sacrifice need only be paid once but the FX point must be paid every time. It is affected by the target's WIL resistance modifier, but that can be increased or decreased based on the victim's physical and mental condition. The number of successes required is equal to the victim's PER score. Each roll represents six hours of enigmatic taunting, evil laughter, and emotional manipulation that requires complete and unfettered access to the victim.

While someone is under the effect of this spell, they are utterly what their master wants them to be. They agree with them about everything and every course of action as if they had arrived at that position through their own rational course of thought. The victim obeys the master's every command without the need for a skill check, but carries these commands out to the spirit, not foolishly to the letter. They will act independently and intelligently in order to make sure their master's desires are met, in the way a normal but loyal friend and ally would. If their master orders the victim to love them, the love they feel is as genuine as any they ever have; if ordered to hate, they truly and honestly despise that person. In short, there are no mental loopholes, hindrances, weaknesses, or peccadilloes from the control process.

Of course, for all their talk about how easy it is to alter the energy of the soul, Entropomancers don't often talk about how damn hard the soul pushes to snap back to its original position. Every week, the Entropomancer maintaining the spell must pay an amount of LEP equal to the victim's PER score times the number of weeks they have been controlled -- for a victim with a 10 PER, pay 10 on the first week, 20 the second, 30 the third, etc. If this amount is not paid on time, the victim is entitled to a Resolve -- Mental Resolve check to break free every hour until the check succeeds or the full amount is paid. If the check does succeed, the victim is completely aware of what was done with him and is going to be INCREDIBLY pissed.

DEAF EYE (Cost 3, PER)  
1 FX Energy Point Marginal sacrifice This skill cannot be used untrained.

Life is a sham and existence a joke. The Entropomancer sees that, but not everyone else does, and sometimes it's a good idea to avoid letting "everyone else" see you doing things that would result in them coming after you with golf clubs and sawed-off pool cues. Or, if you can't hide, convince people that what you're doing is as meaningless as everything else in their existences.

Deaf Eye is used simultaneously with other FX or Psionic skills. When used, it creates a reaction similar to the Taioron Reaction provoked by a youma: people who see the FX skill being used will either not notice it, or conclude that it's nothing to worry or care or talk about. Individuals with FX or Psionic energy are never affected; player characters are never affected (come on, it wouldn't be fun); normal humans who would be entitled to resist the Taioron Reaction may make an Awareness -- Intuition check to evade the spell's effects. The spell confers a 0/ 1/ 2 (O/G/A) step penalty to this check, and each level of sacrifice above Marginal adds another 1 step penalty instead of giving a bonus to the Deaf Eye skill roll.

An affected individual can be made to see the masked effect if shown individually, but not if addressed as a group. An unaffected individual won't get a crowd of affected ones to suddenly see something by standing on the hood of a car and shouting "Look over there! It's a big dome covered in red goo-chicks!" but she could take someone aside, point at said dome and say "Hey, don't you notice something over there?"

(X) Increased Effect: At level 6, the penalty to the Awareness -- Intuition check is 1/ 2/ 3. At level 12, it becomes 2/ 3/ 4. 


	11. Double Blind

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

Beams of golden sunlight passed through the picture window that took up an entire wall of Haruka and Michiru's bedroom, split into horizontal little slats by the miniblinds. They shone on the tiny flecks of dust, hair and skin swirling through the air, they shone on the deep pile carpet, they shone on a bed whose size has not yet even been named by mankind, and they shone right into Dr. Nadine Neary's eyes. She knew, deep down, that she needed to get up, and promptly did so twenty minutes later.

She heart the faint strings of a violin on the air and smelled indistinct, breakfast-y smells coming from the kitchen, and figured she should get something before it was all wolfed down. That, and get something for her head; it was absolutely killing her.

The first thing she saw upon walking out of the bedroom was Donna wearing a low-collared burgundy shirt with a green ribbon unevenly tied on the front and a pleated, plaid skirt, sipping from a mug that said 'Tokyo Philharmonic'. "Morning, Nadine," she said as if she dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl all the time, "How'd you sleep?"

"Ugh... awful. What time is it? Why didn't you guys wake me up for my shift?"

"It's only like seven, seven-thirty." She took a long, slurping drink and visibly relished every droplet. "And Bill took your turn. He said you needed your sleep."

Nadine cocked an eyebrow. "Bill got hit with an axe and then got piledrivered by a cell-phone demon."

"Yeah, well..." Donna looked around as if she were making sure she wouldn't be overheard, even though she was clearly making sure Bill could hear her. "I think whichever one drives the race cars is on amphetamines, and Bill got into their medicine cabinet."

"Those were caffeine pills!" he called back from the kitchen. "It wasn't any different from drinking a pot of coffee!"

"He's very defensive," Donna whispered, and Nadine just rolled her eyes.

The kitchen, Nadine noticed, was bigger than her dorm in college had been. Bill and Philip were in white dress shirts and slacks, Bill was cooking up some French toast while Philip sat at the table reading the paper. "Gooood morning Nadine," said Bill, with way too much cheer for a man who'd been axed, bludgeoned, arrested, and got at most five hours of sleep.

"So I take it Haruka and Michiru never showed?"

"Nope," said Bill. "Pulled the batteries out of all the remotes and stereos and stuff I didn't want to touch with my bare hands, and it turned out to be for nothing." He shook his head. "It's a damn shame."

"So would I be correct in assuming that you and Phil there are wearing women's clothing?"

Philip raised a finger. "They're A WOMAN's clothing. But they are not 'women's clothing'. Bill and I agree this is a very, very important distinction."

Bill passed a plate of toast back to the three of them. "Okay, so everyone's up, what are we going to do today once we loot this place?"

Philip rubbed his temples. "Uh, okay. There's a horrible alien demon beyond space and comprehension about to gnaw his way into reality and kill everyone."

"And that would be bad."

"Yes, Donna. That would be bad. Can we be serious for a moment?" He took a bite of his breakfast, not bothering to use a fork. "Okay, so, we know there are nine Sailor Senshi. The ones for the planets out to Saturn are nice, normal people, assuming they weren't acting for you two, and then Uranus and Neptune are incredibly rich murderous assholes and nobody knows what Pluto is up to. They've been collectively fighting off Isci ba Fan and his minions so far, and assuming that there wasn't another mineral in hiding somewhere, all the minions and intermediaries are dead."

"And Nakami said he hated controlling things directly, so he got some new minions." Nadine paused to swallow a pair of Excedrin and washed them down with half a glass of OJ. "That's where the kinori come in. They're his new Death Breakers or whatever they were called."

"Yeah, and when me and Bill saw 'em, the Senshi were shooting lasers and fireballs and all kinds of crap at them and it wasn't doing much, but bullets were only slightly less effective than usual. So either the Senshi for planets inside the asteroid belt really suck, or they have some kind of magic ward on them. And their nest is big enough to produce a blackscale."

"Tomoe's notes talked about a large quantity of evil material underneath the city. If the kinori dug into it when they were making their next, they could all be hopped up on elemental evil right now." Phil sighed. "Okay, so, we have Sailor Senshi, we have lizards, we have bulletproof household-object demons. We have two guys acting like they're in the FBI, but I'm guessing are not, because they are named after Muppets. They seem to want to hurt us and Hotaru but leave the Senshi alone. Nakami is by now probably in 'Area Gojuuchi' or somewhere so the government can find out as much as they can about him..."

Bill raised his hand. "Question."

"It's Japanese for 'fifty-one'. I don't know what Japan's version of Area 51 would be."

Nadine shook her head. "I speak Japanese and I didn't get it."

"Anyway. Mind-reading shadow FBI agents, evil lizards, Sailor Senshi. Hotaru is around somewhere, but we don't know where she would go since her house and the shrine we stayed at are both undoubtedly being monitored by the police. She could have gone to the house of another Senshi, but since we don't know who any of them ARE, that doesn't help us."

"We know about how old they are. We could look at school yearbooks or something, see if me and Donna recognize anyone."

"Yes, Bill," said Donna as she rolled her eyes, "and we'd be arrested for being child molesters if we tried to get them."

"We're already fugitives from the law." Phil paused with his hand on his chin. "But thank God, the news doesn't have anything about the attack or our escape in it. Maybe they didn't put an APB out on us. Or maybe that asteroid thing worked."

"Oh, and by the way," said Bill as he sat down at the table himself, "If any of you like Juno more than your current asteroid, I'll trade. Just, throwing it out there."

"Anyway? Can I finish? The government already knows about Sailor Moon and company, because they brief the cops about her. And there's no way they let a kinori nest under Tokyo exist without someone knowing something about it. If there's another daimon attack, the Sailor Senshi will show up, and if we're there we can meet back up with them. Until then, we need to perform some information-gathering."

Nadine rubbed her temples and asked out of the blue, "Do any of you know who someone named 'Hangaku' is?"

"No, why?"

"Because I had this dream... I dunno, I've never had a vision, but it kinda feels like a vision. She was this girl, and she looked like Hotaru does when she does the transform thing, in a dress, only she was missing some fingers and her neck was all messed up. She was talking to someone in a white evening gown... like a, oh, I know, it was Serenity, she was talking to Princess Serenity. And they didn't know I was there... I don't think I was supposed to be seeing it."

"Like you were a servant girl who snuck in on the Princess or something?" Bill asked.

"No, like I was wearing my lab coat and the half of the room I was standing in was a dream about vaccinating monkeys so they don't turn into the Incredible Hulk, and over there it's the Silver Millennium. I think I got the dream-vision equivalent of watching a scrambled cable channel."

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 11: DOUBLE BLIND ∙ ∙ ∙

APARTMENT OF CHIBA MAMORU TOKYO, JAPAN TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1995, 7:08 AM

Itohiro Nakami sat up, still groggy, and rubbed his head. Most of his mental faculties were still asleep, and his vision was blurry. He belched, yawned, scratched his back, stood up to go find a shot of Jack, and that's when he realized that he was in someone unfamiliar's bedroom, he had slept on top of a pile of socks, and four teenaged Japanese girls were staring at him. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and didn't even consider throwing his illusion back on. The girls all continued to stare at him and he waved meekly. "Uh... Hello?"

"Is he up?" called a younger girl's voice from behind them. "You're not staring at him, are you?"

"No!" said the two blondes in unison, and then kept right on staring at him.

"Stop starin' at him. Not polite." mumbled the shape on the bed that Nakami only just now realized was a person.

A short little girl with pink hair and red eyes elbowed her way past the others. "You'll have to excuse them, Nakami-san. They've never seen a fraal before."

"Oh. That's understandable, I guess?" His voice cracked with panic. "Where the Hell am I and who are all of you people and how did I get here and how do you know what a fraal is and how do you know my name?"

"Uhh," the girl held out her fingers to count off her responses, "You're in Mamoru's apartment, that's Mamoru, these are Usagi, Makoto, Minako, and Rei and I'm Chibi-Usa, we took you here after you passed out in the police station, Hotaru told us, and Hotaru told us." Hotaru didn't actually tell Chibi-Usa what a fraal was, but she figured that explaining how she really knew would take forever.

"Uh, okay?" His appearance shimmered and he looked human again. "That doesn't explain a lot of what I, did you say Hotaru was here?"

"She's in the living room," Mamoru said into his pillow, "Go in there and let me sleep."

And they did. The living room was spacious considering it was in Tokyo but not really set up for company; a blue-haired woman slept on the couch and a blonde slept on the floor below her. Hotaru leaned against the far wall, in the Sailor Saturn costume from last night, holding her weapon ready. There were dark circles under her eyes.

"Okay, that's, uh, one more question. Hotaru, what are you doing here?"

"I'm standing watch to make sure nobody can warp in here while we're asleep." She yawned. "I couldn't sleep. I've been up since four." She seemed slightly ashamed. "We all had to stay in one place after we got out of police headquarters... we don't know if there are more of the shadow-men around to pick us off."

"I remember, Takaji locked me in the interrogation room, and then you and somebody else cut the door open... Who was that?"

"Me!" Chibi-Usa raised her hand, then bowed. "Sailor Chibi-Moon, at your service. It's hard to recognize me when I've got it on."

"Chibi-Usa!" Usagi said, shocked. "That's your secret identity!"

"He's an alien, odango, and he's on our team!" Chibi-Usa stuck out her tongue, and Usagi stuck out hers right back. "And, he's telepathic so if he really wanted he could read your mind anyway."

"Oh. Uh, right." To tell the truth, Usagi was a little glad they could skip the whole mistrust, 'are you my ally or aren't you' phase they were still going through with the Outers. "Uh, I'm Sailor Moon, that's Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune are on the couch, on the bed in there is Tuxedo Kamen, and you know Saturn."

Nakami bowed hesitantly. "Itohiro Nakami, Director of the Hoffmann Institute. You all are the magic space princesses, right?"

Minako laughed nervously. "Something like that?"

"Soo... that's uh, good, I guess?" Nakami looked around, not really sure how to approach this new development of waking up with the Planet Princess Parade, and figuring he didn't get nearly enough sleep to do so. "Uh, I don't suppose there's any liquor around here?"

They all stared at him in disbelief for several seconds. And then as he stood in an unfamiliar apartment surrounded by strange young Japanese girls with magic powers who had seen his true form and who he just asked for booze... Itohiro Nakami, the alien dissenter secretly living on Earth, the one who once had to explain to the governor of Washington that what had happened in Spokane was a 'freak surveying accident', the one who was briefly 'married' to a mentally ill Ziljir in order to prevent her from bombing his headquarters off the face of the Earth, whose favorite movie is 'Howard the Duck' and who has mentioned this in mixed company, knew that the next few hours would be the most awkward of his life.

∙

A shot of alcohol from the first aid kit was enough to wake Nakami up, and Chibi-Usa seemed to go along with his explanation that it was a stimulant, so at least they didn't think he was a drunkard. Over breakfast, Usagi and Rei filled him in, and if he thought Hotaru gave him the whole story, this was an entire epic saga. The Silver Millennium, the Dark Kingdom, the two aliens, the Black Moon, time travel, whole shebang. When they finished, he had one thing to say.

"Well, I feel like a jackass." He thought back to what Takaji had told him, angrily, multiple times. "I'm sorry, Hotaru."

"Why does that make you want to apologize?" asked Hotaru, looking up from an already-soggy bowl of cereal.

"I came down here and made you a job offer because I'm an idiot and didn't think that you already had a team that had things well in hand, and I guess I wasn't willing to hear it. It's... insulting, is what it is, to even think you'd consider it."

"Oh. That." She stirred the bowl around with her spoon. "I'd forgotten all about that." She hadn't, it was still bugging her from some corner of her brain and she could not figure out why. "And we're not all a team anyway. I just showed up and I haven't even done anything, and Haruka-san and Michiru-san are only here because they don't know anything we don't and don't want to miss out on anything, they'll go solo as soon as they have something we don't."

Everyone looked over at Haruka and she narrowed her eyes before taking a slow, deliberate bite of an Eggo, chewed, and swallowed without looking away from them. "All of you are terrible at your jobs. I don't see why that's my fault."

"You're all good enough, as far as I can see. If it's true and since you're already magic princesses I don't see why not. You had ancient demons, alien infiltrators, and terrorists from the future a year and a half apart, and, and I never even heard about it and Tokyo is still standing. You're... goddamned amazing."

Usagi hadn't really thought bout it in those terms, but yeah, she WAS damn good, wasn't she?

"I mean, the Hoffmann Institute is a nationwide organization, I've got thousands of employees... and I guess when Takaji told me he was going to leave you alone to do your thing, I didn't know..."

"You thought all of them were as depressed and dysfunctional as me," Hotaru said.

"No, I thought you were as dysfunctional as Bill, Donna, Philip, and Nadine. Kunimatsu Takaji said that he was keeping his hands off and letting you deal with all this stuff, and, I guess I didn't put it together that you could handle it, and here my people come in trying to make everything better and screwing things up. Nadine was in tears because she thought she was the only person who'd be around for you."

"I'm sorry that I made her go through that."

Chibi-Usa looked at Hotaru meaningfully. "See? People want to be your friend!"

"I'm sorry, Hotaru, but the way you talked... I guess they, we, thought you didn't have any. God, we're not doing anything useful here, I should just stay out of your way."

Chibi-Usa's need to cheer up everyone she came into contact with kicked in. "Don't feel bad! I mean, your guys found Hotaru and kept her safe, right? And they figured out how to make that magnimawhatever that can keep the Isci ba Pharaoh away, and they fought off those lizard things. And that's when we can use magic and you all can't, which is really like cheating."

"Magnima..." Nakami gestured to the device sitting on a table in the living room. "That thing? I thought that was a hot dog rotisserie."

"It's the... magnetized, repulsor, no, the..." Makoto paused, then her and Rei said in unison, "Rotating magnetic resonance disruptor." Makoto added, "The thing they blew up on Thursday and it turned off all the magic for a couple days. If we can find Ami-chan again, or your guys, then we can make a bunch of them and just keep the Pharaoh sealed out until we can make a more permanent solution. Do you know how to blow this one, in case we need to use it?"

Nakami blinked and looked dismayed. "That's not going to work. If that's the device they used, and what happened on Thursday is the effect you need, you, you can't reproduce that. They threw that thing into a Fader."

"So, why did that work, and can we do it ourselves?"

"About a quadrillion volts of electricity had to run through that device to produce that effect."

"Oh." Makoto blinked. "I don't think I have that much. That's bad."

"That is really, really bad," agreed Minako. "Because that was kinda our plan."

"But you said Kunimatsu Takaji was talking about us, right?" asked Rei. "The head of the NPA, he knows about us and he says he lets us do our thing?"

"Yes. He's... why the hell am I worrying about keeping his secret, he's an alien like me, the whole LDP is full of alien conspirators. He says they could try and kill daimons and stuff but if they ignore it you'll take care of it."

"Oh." Rei's voice cracked. "Well, I think I know where we can go to next."

∙ ∙ ∙

Meioh Setsuna stood half-submerged in a soapy underground pool, the large chamber bathed in cool blue light from an unknown source. The nest used the stream here to collect water and bathe in, but when the Gate-Keeper used it everyone else cleared out. She was naked, not that it mattered, face shrouded in preternatural shadow, scrubbing her already red and bleeding arms.

Near her, standing in the same place he had been for the past twenty minutes while patiently waiting to be addressed, was Kher-Aya, the blackscale leader of the kinori nest. He didn't know if he should be looking away, or looking at her, and eventually decided to stare at a point about a meter away from her as she engaged in her obsessive-compulsive bathing ritual.

"How long are you going to stand there without saying anything, Kher-Aya?" she said as she came to the edge of the pool. "If you have information to offer that is more important than my futile attempts at cleanliness, I would not appreciate the delay. Time is more important. And if you don't have new information to offer, give me your knife."

The kinori swallowed nervously and shuffled his taloned feet, but then pulled the knife out of the harness on his chest and passed it to her handle-first. If she was going to kill him, she was going to kill him, and failing to follow the order might inspire her to do it.

Without a smile or wink, not that Kher-Aya could see anyway, she took the blade in one hand and wrapped a length of her hair around the other, then used the knife to start sawing it off. "You were hesitant to give me your weapon because you're under the impression I am going to kill you for your failure last night at police headquarters. You are mistaken."

"Gate-Keeper, please, I am sorry, it won't happen again--"

"Your objective was successful. You verified that there was no kinori held prisoner there and no kinori was taken alive. The fact that you encountered Sailor Moon and failed to kill her is immaterial. Daimons can be manufactured at will and you have many more warriors at your disposal." She winced as she cut off another rope of long, green hair. "I am not angry."

"Uh, good? I was told that when messenger told you last night you shattered his neck."

"Well. I am certainly not happy, but I am not angry." Another fistful of hair chopped off, half her head now reduced to uneven green clumps. "I am curious to know how for such a small mission, you lost twelve daimons and seventeen warriors, when you were supposed to present such immediate and overwhelming force no resistance was possible."

"Daimons, not following orders, acting irrationally. Had the wrong building to search. And, did not expect Sailor Moon to--"

"I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO TELL YOU THIS!" Setsuna shouted, then cleared her throat. "I should not have to tell you this. Sailor Moon appears every time. This is a pattern that is very, very easily discerned. by any organism with even the SLIGHTEST, the SLIGHTEST HINT of reasoning capacity. At all points in the future, if I order you to do something, you are to assume that I expect Sailor Moon to interfere."

Kher-Aya hadn't really encountered Sailor Moon many times and didn't have a basis to draw that conclusion from, but knew better than to say so.

"At least, we can know we have made it back to where we began. Minus, of course, some daimons and warriors." She took a deep, cleansing breath. "We will take what we have learned from this experience and alter our behavior accordingly, because to perform the same actions over and over would be insanity."

"Yes, Gate-Keeper."

"I am a purely rational and logical individual, Kher-Aya. I recognize that which advances my cause, and that which... hello, what's this?" Behind her in the water, she saw a small reptile, slightly larger than a basketball, with fins for arms and legs and a long, curved neck that slightly resembled a giraffe's. A cryptoplesid, an animal much like a pygmy plesiosaur, that inhabited the subterranean waterways. It had floated up behind her while she was speaking and was now bending its little neck over to experimentally nibble on the strands of green hair floating behind her. Setsuna watched it wordlessly as it munched on a few strands, looked up to her with big glistening eyes as if for approval or guidance, then put its nose back down into the water.

Then she wrapped her hand around the animals neck, lifted it, and smashed it repeatedly against the stone floor. Without a grimace, without a scream or a growl, she pounded its body into the rock, letting its pained and surprised squeaks echo throughout the cavern. Kher-Aya winced and blood spattered off of it onto the floor, the water, Setsuna's body, as its bones broke and skin ruptured. Finally the broken body came free of the shattered neck as she was lifting it over her head, sending it tumbling end over end like a blood-spurting football into the back of the cavern. She flung the neck after it, inhaled deeply, and submerged herself in the water to wash off the blood. When she came back out, she batted the remaining hair from her face and continued, "I recognize that which advances my cause and that which holds it back, and striking out at my subordinates is the latter."

It took absolutely every atom, every lepton of self-control Isci ba Fan had not to go on a bloody killing spree and butcher everything in this nest with his, her, or anyone else's bare hands. He had to put up with it for now because he needed subordinates to ensure his arrival would not be thwarted again. He was capable of performing these duties by himself, of course, but there was still the slim but real chance that Sailor Moon could pull some freak magic grail laser out of her ass and banish him. He needed warm meat-shields in between her and him until he could shatter the barrier holding him back, shred her consciousness from her body, and leave her an immaterial quivering husk of suffering.

And though his subordinates were of course wretchedly, infuriatingly incompetent in every single task they undertook, he would not scream, or threaten them, or kill one to make the others know he was angry. Compared to the control it took not to butcher them all, the additional effort to not merely abuse and torture them was minuscule He had seen firsthand what happened when an organization such as this was run with fear and mistrust and backbiting no matter how much it was deserved: they made stupid mistakes, got locked into nonfunctioning behavior patterns, and in general failed at whatever they did to an even greater extent than every thing on this blighted ball of incompetence usually failed in everything they did.

If the 'Witches 5' had actually combined their insignificant intellects together and focused on the goal, instead of sabotaging each other's efforts, maybe he wouldn't have to be talking to underground lizards right now. And though he had not been involved in Queen Beryl's efforts save for nosing around to see if she had a usable portal, he knew that if she'd even waited five minutes before killing or imprisoning her lieutenants, Sailor Moon would already be dead, the Death Busters could have easily killed anything Beryl had at her disposal, and he would have surged into reality utterly unopposed. No, Isci ba Fan was not stupid, and would not make stupid, stupid mistakes like they did. His white-hot, shrieking rage and bottomless loathing could remain hidden until he was prepared to unleash them in full, because Isci ba Fan... does not... make stupid mistakes.

"Uh... Gate-Keeper?" Kher-Aya shuddered. "Are you, okay, or should I come back?"

"What?" Setsuna's attention snapped back to reality. "No, no, I am perfectly fine. Now, what we have learned from our experiences is that the large, mindless daimons follow orders perfectly but are unsuitable to work unsupervised, and the small, independent daimons can adapt to new situations but are poor at obeying commands. Since we are rational we will take this knowledge and alter our behavior accordingly." She cut off another length of hair, her uneven hairstyle now looked like a shrub undergoing chemotherapy, but all that matters was it would be out of her way. "Recall any teams that are on the surface, if there are any. We will hold back and fortify, manufacture the large daimons for defense and the independent daimons will do something that does not require orders and coordination."

"At once, Gate-Keeper."

∙ ∙ ∙

Dr. Philip Akens sat at a hardwood table in the National Diet Library, glancing between three hardbound books, pausing to mark down notes of his own on which pages to photocopy. Finally, he was in his element.

Nearby, Bill Wheeler flipped through newspapers written in a language he didn't understand, looking for a photo or police sketch of one of them, or a picture of police headquarters attacked by monsters, or something. Nadine had already read them, but he felt like a jackass just sitting there and looking over Philip's shoulder at stuff he couldn't understand. He was totally out of his element.

He folded up the newspaper and instead concentrated on the nearby TV, showing news reports at once notch above 'Mute'. He couldn't understand this either, but if he saw a brightly-colored monster, they knew there were more daimons afoot. So he watched the TV for a few minutes until he got agitated and went back to the paper.

"Bored?" Philip whispered.

"A little bit, yeah. Are you almost done?"

"This is my thing, Bill. I don't get impatient with you when you fight the monster, don't get impatient with me when I'm finding out where and how to fight it."

"What are you doing anyway, going to look up 'kinori' in the phone book?"

"No..." He made another notation and closed one of the books. "Donna and Nadine are snooping around for any kind of restricted area, but I'd wager that we're going to find everything we need as a matter of public record, once we know what it is we're looking for."

"Don't think I'm going to say this often, but explain that to me because it's my least boring option."

"Uhhh, okay?" Phil shrugged. "The government has a network of secret tunnels under Tokyo. Kinori live in secret caves under Tokyo. Kinori work for the bad guy. Find the kinori nest, find the bad guy or how to get to him."

"And how are we going to do that in the library if this is secret government stuff?"

"Because they're lazy and there's a bunch of books out about exploring the secret tunnels and they just count on everyone thinking only crazies believe it, and the fact there's nothing to do down there, to keep people out." He flipped to the next page, then back, then back and forth a few times comparing numbers. "Since the tunnels are never used, my guess is they dug into the main kinori cavern and then stopped. Find out when they stopped digging, which we can do by looking at their yearly budgets, and find out how fast they were digging, we can find the point in Tokyo under which the tunnel network and the kinori caverns intersect." He threaded his fingers together like two gears meshing. "Simple."

"And if you can't figure out when they stop or where, and we can't find Hotaru before shit starts to go down?"

"Then we're going to be completely screwed, so stop distracting me." Philip reached into the pile of books on the floor next to him and passed one to Bill. "If you're bored, here's a book of yamato-e paintings, stop and tell me if you see a white lizard standing on its feet."

∙ ∙ ∙

There was what Hotaru recognized as a flurry of activity and planning in the apartment, but it felt calm. Not calm as in tranquil, serene; calm as in what precedes the storm.

The kinori -- or the t'sa, as Chibi-Usa kept calling them -- lived somewhere underground, and Minako had found out that the tunnel network was a lot bigger than she thought. They would have to find out through other means how to find their nest and with it the Pharaoh. Rei thought she might have a way in on that front, in her father, and she only waited for Minako, Usagi, and Makoto to come back from school. They were the only ones that had gone, because they could stay in a group. Mamoru, Rei, or Chibi-Usa could be picked off on their own, and Haruka and Michiru had no school to return to. They agonized over the decision to go to school, but eventually they decided on it lest they drive themselves insane with fruitless worrying. They had the communicator watches if anything happened.

Rei, Haruka and Mamoru were filling out a supply list, having the rare advantage of being able to prepare ahead of time, and were discussing the relative merits of night-vision goggles versus chemical break-lights for the pitch-dark kinori caverns. Sailor Neptune was fruitlessly trying to scry with her mirror, and Hotaru was sitting on the couch, trying not to nod off, flanked by Nakami and Chibi-Usa.

Chibi-Usa got a message last night in her dreams, from the first Princess Saturn, a woman named Hangaku. Hotaru was in trouble, she said, and she has to know people care, she has to know how special and wonderful she is. It was Chibi-Usa's mission and she was not about to take it lightly. If Sailor Saturn was the only one who could stop the Pharaoh -- and she was going to do it and stay alive afterwards -- then what did it matter if they found him if she was in no condition to do it?

"Hotaru-chan? What's wrong?"

"Hm? Oh, no, no, it's nothing. I'm just tired." Hotaru sighed, knowing nobody believed it, then turned to Nakami. She saw him as an alien in a tie sitting on the couch, she had to take the others' word for it that he looked human. "Nakami-san, you said you didn't know of any other planets in the solar system ever being inhabited, right?"

"Uh, no, not that I'm aware of. When the mothership arrived they would have scanned every planet for signs of habitation, but they didn't find anything. But, if they were unoccupied and they destroyed them on the way out, the ship wouldn't have found them. And this was thousands of years ago, the records are probably gone."

"Oh." She drummed her fingers on her thigh. "Do you know of anything like the Silver Millennium, that the fraal were involved in?" Chibi-Usa briefly considered interrupting, but thought better of it.

"Uhhh... Well, yes and no. The closest I can think of is... well, no point in keeping this secret given who I'm talking to, was Atlantis."

"Wait, wait, wait." Mamoru held up his hands as he overheard the other conversation. "Atlantis is real?"

Everyone else in the room stared at him. "Mamoru-san..." said Rei, "Your on-again, off-again girlfriend is a reincarnated princess from the moon, and Chibi-Usa-chan there is your daughter from the future."

"I was working under the assumption that Atlantis was real and would somehow try to kill us all," added Michiru.

"I wouldn't worry about that. Atlantis was a disasterpiece of epic proportions." He saw that everyone was looking to him for more, turned around on the couch, and got situated. "Okay, now, like I said, this happened thousands of years ago, so it could be distorted from what originally occurred, but, this is a story that gets told pretty often... in, heated political arguments. There's two major political parties of the fraal, there's the Ahotti, the reactionaries who want everything to be the way it is and hold back progress, and there's the Iltan, and we believe we should share our technology with humankind and it'll be better for all of us. Atlantis was the Iltan's idea, and since it failed, the Ahotti have been in power ever since.

"Okay, so, the fraal mothership arrived here in about 6000 BC, and they landed on an island with highly-advanced -- you know, for the time -- inhabitants that called themselves Atlanteans. The fraal lived with the Atlanteans for a while, but the Ahotti were in power then, and they didn't help the Atlanteans to advance, they mostly learned bits and pieces of magic from kinori sorcerers. Then, about a thousand years afterward, some crazy kind of alien demon invades from these mysterious stones, fraal and kinori Atlanteans fight it off together, the Iltan say this proves the Atlanteans can be trusted with our advanced technology, and the kinori say the same thing for their magic."

"And then they went mad with power and tried to conquer the world," said Haruka.

"Moooore like they thought they were the kings of all creation already and saw no need to advance themselves, or do any work, or really do anything but sit around in fancy robes, or taunt the Greeks and Egyptians with all the cool stuff they had and weren't giving to anyone. We thought that together we'd be able to advance technologically faster than on our own, but their culture completely stagnated. They refused to trade with anyone and they had to endure constant defensive wars as everyone tried to get at their advanced technology and magic. They warred with each other, constantly, over the most petty homeowners-association politics you can imagine. Eventually one of their own citizens, disgusted with how lazy and hedonistic the culture was, got fed up and destroyed the telluric generator powering it all, blowing the entire island to smithereens."

"So all of our technological developments throughout history have come from aliens?" asked Hotaru, eyes wide. "That's scary."

"No, no, the Ahotti were pretty thorough in picking up all the pieces from Atlantis. We give out stuff, but few and far between -- I did it a few times so I could have the patents, so I could get some money from them, but they were things you were close to developing anyway. Most of it has been you guys, and the Ahotti claiming credit because they didn't have to give the technology to you. And nowadays you have computers and electronics more advanced than what we make." Hotaru saw him run a hand over his bald head, everyone else saw it go through his hair. "We're really not a tenth as influential as we like to think or you like to give us credit for. Most of our effort is spent on petty bickering and infighting within or between parties, and even the ones working to control the US government don't have anywhere near complete control, because they need to navigate the same web of bureaucracy, corruption, and incompetence as anyone. Honestly, if the Ahotti decided to cut ties with the LDP, I imagine the Ahotti would come out of the bargain far worse. So, uh, I know about a super-advanced fallen ancient civilization, but nothing like the Silver Millennium."

And everyone was eager to drop the line of conversation after that. "Yeah, anyway," said Mamoru, "we have a battle to prepare for. Okay, so, I know the Space Sword will cut through them, is there any way you can shut off the light source for..." and they began planning once again.

"Why don't you go join them?" asked Chibi-Usa. "You've got to know something that can help. You know more about t'sa than I do, right?"

"I'm an administrator, not a general, and if I was a good administrator the Hoffmann Institute wouldn't be running a constant budget deficit. Isci ba Fan is about a trillion times more serious than anything I've ever dealt with, and honestly the thought of confronting him makes me want to crap myself."

"But this is what you guys do, right? We're in, you know, the same business, kinda. We can use your help!"

"No, no it isn't. You had terrorists from the future with their own fully-functional space cruiser seeding the city with nigh-indestructible demons capable of draining human energy and mind-controlling entire packs of people, led by a hideous space phantom that wants nothing less than the destruction of all life on Earth. You're lucky, because if Wisephantom showed up in Memphis, Tennessee, everyone would be dead right now! You know who comes from the future that the Institute fights? Sandmen. Cyborgs from the future who want to convert all of humanity into cyborgs like them with little nanite injections, only their injections cost 15 million in materials, and they can't actually mind-control people since nanites don't work like that, so they never end up changing anyone since they're never sure it's going to be worth the money, or if the person is just gonna get super-strength and speed and just run off without joining their cause. They're idiots, incompetents and assholes. We combat government conspiracies marked by idiots, incompetents and assholes. No destiny, no fate, no magic warriors. We don't have any part of this world here and you should thank God or Queen Serenity or whoever for that."

Hotaru's eyes went wide and she thought she could hear an actual clicking noise coming from inside her head. "But it is, now. You brought your business over here, or, or something. Senshi don't fight kinoris, they fight magic monsters." She stood up and looked back at the others. "Magic doesn't work on them very well, right? What were you going to do about that?"

"Me, you, and Haruka-san have weapons that can harm them, Minako-san's chain might work, Ami-san's attack can slow them if we can find her again."

"And Nakami-san, when your people have to kill kinori, what do they use?"

"Uh, we try not to let them get in melee range, when we did it in Manhattan we used 10-gauge shotguns with rifled slugs, and flamethrowers for support. Headlamps instead of night vision goggles, but that was a budget issue, and grenades to clear defensive emplacements. You've got better, and you've done better, without any of that."

"Write it down." Hotaru held out her hand and couldn't stop it from shaking. "Shotguns are legal in Japan, right? For hunters? We might be able to get those. And, and we can make explosives. Because his guys could do it and they don't have to be a magic anything."

"I don't know if I can handle a shotgun," Haruka said, "but it would be stupid of me not to try because I insisted on adhering to a certain code of behavior."

"Okay, but," Rei said, "We still need to figure out what we do when we get there, if the Pharaoh is there."

"I have no idea. Standard Hoffmann Institute protocol in this situation, absent any other information and assuming it can't be safely detained, would be douse whatever it is in gasoline and set it on fire. I doubt that will help."

"We have been through this. Hotaru is going to destroy it. She's the only one with the power to do that."

"No. No, no we don't." Hotaru was smiling with her eyes if not her mouth. "We don't even know I can do that, right? I mean, I was, or, or Saturn was supposed to be so powerful she can destroy a planet, but they never tested it, because we still have all of them. How did they know it worked? Maybe they just wanted--"

Haruka reared up to slap her across the mouth but once more stopped at the last second. "Stop. You're just going to end up hurting yourself and everyone around you worse. I know what you're thinking, you heard all of that about Atlantis, and you thought maybe the Silver Millennium was just like them, a bunch of egotistical windbags more talk than action who couldn't actually put together enough power to destroy a planet, and you'd be off the hook. I don't even believe the Silver Millennium existed and it does not matter. You're Sailor Saturn and that's not something you can find a way to weasel out of. You can't fight your destiny, you can't cheat your destiny, you can't outrun your destiny and God damn it I have tried."

"You can't talk to her like that!" squealed Chibi-Usa.

"As opposed to what? Lying to her like you? Shutting my eyes and covering my ears and chanting everything will be okay like Sailor Moon? I'm not going to sit here and let her build herself up to be let down even more when she has to do what she has to do. If she tries to get out of that destiny everyone is going to die, whether you or I like it or not. Pretending otherwise is irresponsible and dangerous." She scoffed and turned around. "I don't want to hear any sugary speech you have to offer me in defense. Michiru and I are getting another car, and yes, we're coming back here, as little as we like it, because that is how things work."

∙ ∙ ∙

"I was wondering when you would get up. It's like one in the afternoon, I intended to do things today other than watch Ami," said Statler.

"You get shot as many times as I did and you get to criticize my sleeping habits, ass," Waldorf shot back. He gestured to Ami, still tied to the chair. "Anything I should know about?"

"About what we expected, panic, fear, panic, fear, hate, more panic, complete terror, praying for death, et cetera, et cetera. Up until about an hour ago, and then it's all 'CHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKKK'," he said, imitating television static.

"I told you it would be easy." Waldorf leaned over and forced Ami's eye open; the surface was clouding over with white. "I thought she was going to get crazy mind control eyes, but solid white works too. See, her kind goes easy. It was easy enough for Queen Beryllium to do, we won't have a problem."

"Well, you take watch. I'm gonna go look for Makoto, shouldn't be too hard to find."

Ami looked from one to the other and back. She didn't know how she'd fallen asleep, she was too terrified to sleep and could not let her defenses down... but she fell asleep anyway, for how long she did not know. There had been no progress or change. Her body felt like she was moving and staying still at the same time, like she'd been at the amusement park and was now trying to sleep and it was still under the impression she was riding a roller coaster. Her mind was, of course, gripped in complete terror. She couldn't scream any more, not that they would care. Statler shadow-stepped out rather than open the door and let sound escape.

Waldorf had checked her eyes, they were changing color. They were going to turn her into one of them, or at least something close enough to them to obey their edicts. It couldn't be long now, after they'd let her stew in her own paralytic terror, to swoop in and rob her of her free will and everything that made her human. She was about to be spiritually murdered and there was nothing she could do about it.

And then she realized something, and she felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. It had all just come together, but she should have known the entire time. There was nothing to be afraid of here, nothing at all.

∙ ∙ ∙

Kunimatsu Takaji tapped the button on his desk. "Kimiko-san? Send Hino-san in." He leaned back in his chair and massaged his temples. Today was not a good day and it would only get worse.

"Yes, Kunimatsu-san, thank you for seeing me so qui--"

"Sit down in the chair and don't say a Goddamn word unless I ask you a question." Hino Takashi quickly took a seat while Takaji poured two shot glasses full of sake from a bottle sitting underneath his desk, paused, and drank them both. He did it more to illustrate the state of mind he was in, if he wanted something that affected him the way sake did a human he would be doing shots of antifreeze, though that would take some explaining to justify to Takashi. "I am in an absolute world of shit today and I really, really don't have time for pleasantries. You know what happened at police headquarters last night?"

"Some prisoners escaped, last I heard. Some kind of flaw in the electrical system?"

"The answer to that question was 'no' because you do not know what happened. What happened was it was assaulted by a massive force of youma, who were apparently looking for something in particular. I have NO idea how we've actually managed to keep a lid on this story. I just hope some idol singer dies in the middle of a freaky sex act before my ability to hold this media blackout together totally gives out. There were at least twenty, and a bunch were of a species nobody has ever seen before. I don't have to tell you how bad that is." Takaji also didn't have to tell Takashi that that 'new species' wasn't a youma at all, because that was immaterial by this point. Finding out how the hell kinori got underneath the city was going to be a whole other matter.

Takashi could guess. The pattern followed so far had been one monster, one monster, one monster, maybe two monsters, Senshi go off elsewhere to kill whoever is responsible, come back and repeat the cycle. Youma didn't attack civilian, non-Senshi assets and they didn't attack en masse. "Is there anything I can do to help, sir?"

"If there wasn't I would not have called in you in here, would I? I have been ducking calls all day from the Prime Minister, the members of the Diet who know about youma, the members of the Diet who don't, LDP hatchet men, and every other asshole with my phone number and they're all demanding to know what's going on and I can't give them an answer because I don't know myself." Anger and fear were rising in his voice in equal measure. "You know that arrest you were bitching to me about yesterday?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

"Well, I looked into it yesterday, and like you said, the FBI wasn't involved. I traced it up to three captains, each of whom thought one of the other two told him there was going to be FBI assistance in a counterterrorism case. Two agents, named Waldorf and Statler." He paused and looked at Takashi expectantly.

"Uh, I'm sorry sir, I don't recognize those names. Are they on the terrorism watch list?"

"Waldorf and Statler are Muppets. They're the two old guys who sit on the balcony and heckle the rest of the show. The 'FBI' guys were being cute with us. One of them went to Public Security Intelligence and one of them went to the NPA and they've been bossing around government agents like they own the place, seizing and suppressing information on their own without ever letting us in on the loop. And the people they arrested at your shrine? Two more of them were found, with Sailor Moon, at the aftermath of a youma attack. The four of them were the ones who escaped the holding cells, after they beat another youma to death with a light stand, a fire safe, and a power drill. They claimed to be Sailor Juno, Vesta, Ceres, and Pallas, and claimed that the two FBI agents were some kind of mind-reading shadow creatures."

"So they said anything to get out of jail and took advantage of a youma attack to do it. We know youma can be killed by normal means since that one that was trying to drain the life of people on the subway platform fell off and got run over."

"Except, the member of their group the fake FBI men DIDN'T catch was one Tomoe Hotaru."

Takashi sat up. "As in the daughter of crazy warlock scientist Tomoe Suoichi?" Takaji nodded. "The one who was either going to destroy the world or turn out to be the last Senshi, and since we're all still here that leaves the one option?"

"The very same. And the reports from the police officers working under Statler? They say he acted incredibly unusual but nobody reported anything because he liked to threaten them with their deepest, hidden fears if they made waves."

"So you think there's youma infiltrating the government and they used us to disable Senshi support personnel."

Takaji shook his head. "No, no, they aren't Senshi support personnel like Osaka or the cats. They work for the Hoffmann Institute, an American anti-paranormal outfit. Their leader came down here to try and poach a Senshi for his own ranks. But we can assume they are working together for the moment and whatever is trying to detain the Senshi and them is one of the Senshi's foes. I want to know how long this infiltration has been going on and how we're going to stop it. I can't exactly tell everyone that IAB is sweeping them all to see if they're crazy demons from another dimension, and I have no way of dealing with them anyway. And I can't let it get out that I let the police get infiltrated in this way, either, to the public OR to anyone who already knows demons exist."

Takashi sighed. "And you called me here so I could cash in the chip with my daughter, tell her we know, and have her send the rest of the Senshi in to clean house. Sir, I really don't know if that's wise."

"No, what is unwise is if people find out what's been going on behind my back before I have an answer for it. Someone is going to take the fall for this regardless, and it had better not be me."

"It's just, my daughter and I aren't on the best of terms, and it's possible she won't even relay the message out of spite towards me. I will try."

"You had damn well better. Because if I go down for this I don't go lightly. I am going to take more people with me than a Palestinian suicide bomber."

Takashi sighed, steepled his hands in front of his face, and then pointed to the sake bottle. "Give me some of that, I'm going to need it." He messily poured himself a glass, splashing half of it into his lap. "What are you going to do about the media, sir?"

He waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, I figure, I'll say it was Aum Shinri Kyo again, and say we have the mastermind in custody, and show them one of the Mugen people. That should keep the hounds at bay for a little while."

∙ ∙ ∙

The four of them met at the photocopy machines to compare notes, figuratively and literally. "What'd you guys find?" asked Bill, while Philip worked two copiers at once. "Secret chamber of forbidden knowledge?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Donna said. "They have to keep the good stuff all somewhere else. No, we were looking through the research journals."

"Yes, apparently..." Nadine said as she pulled a paper out of the middle of the stack she was holding, "Going crazy and trying to end the world didn't stop Dr. Tomoe from publishing research papers. He seems to work a lot with the same five people... Kuromine Kaori, Hanyuu Mimi, Teruno Ruru, Bidou Yui, and Arimura Yuko." She looked away and snapped her fingers a few times. "And I could swear I have heard that last name before."

"Probably the Witches Five," Philip said. "Hotaru mentioned something about a Kaori being in on it, and apparently the students at Mugen suspected 'Professor Arimura' was a witch."

"Well, I figured I could see what else they had their names on and see if we could get any info from them that may not have been in that one box of Dr. Tomoe's notes. So I looked them all up here, and they cover a very wide range of fields."

Bill shrugged. "You want to diversify out when you assemble your evil superteam, because someone is going to have your one weakness anyway."

"Kaori was another physicist, like Dr. Tomoe, Mimi was string theory without a lot of string experiments, Ruru was into genetics and botany and named a species of plant, and Yui was on the cutting edge of nanorobotics. Yuko published no papers herself, but she does hold three patents, one for some kind of EM amplification device, one for a fuel-injection system, and one for a specific vanadium alloy that's really good at heat dissipation."

"Hell of a brain trust." Bill rubbed the back of his head and looked slightly embarrassed. "I barely graduated high school. I feel like we're totally, totally outclassed by everyone here."

"Well, these bitches all died, and we're still alive," said Donna. "So who's the smart one now?"

"Probably still them," Bill muttered.

"And they were clearly in it for love of science alone, because Dr. Tomoe had ungodly scads of money." Philip paused to slide another note into the copy machine and flip to a new page in the book. "When I was looking up financial records, I saw he didn't just serve as Mugen's headmaster, he owned the entire building, the land, everything. That plot of land alone had to be worth millions upon millions. The Tokyo Bay land reclamation project? His idea. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts..." He flipped the book around and hit 'scan' again, "...that the foreign investment capital he drummed up was his own money put through dummy corporations. He probably was in with the Bildebergers."

"Damn, you've been a busy bee," said Donna. "Where did you find all this stuff?"

"Oh, newspapers, financial periodicals, public bids on government contracts, budget reports, that kind of stuff." He shrugged and smiled. "This is my thing, after all. Anyway, most of that isn't useful to us now that Dr. Tomoe is dead and the school is a smoking crater. But what IS useful is that the building was built to his exacting specifications, including an unusual position on the road grid that ended up taking up twice as much real estate as it would if it was placed like all the other buildings. Big, useless shaft down the middle that looks like the kind of thing you gather energy in. And cold-riveted girders with cores of pure selenium. Where have we seen that kind of construction before?"

"So he built the school to gather energy, and put it directly on top of the big evil booger that the kinori are all hopped up on now. And, he did the land reclamation thing because said booger was out underneath the bay and he couldn't build on top of it."

"That's the theory I'm working from right now, Bill. And if we find the 'booger', we're going to find Isci ba Fan."

"And then we..." Donna looked at him expectantly, "...what, throw a can of gasoline at it and set it on fire?"

"Well, I hadn't got that far. I still have to find where the kinori cavern intersects the tunnel network; Dr. Tomoe wasn't working with the kinori, so he most likely didn't dig down to meet them himself. I need to run off some seismic reports from the 70's and these analyses of the groundwater, and then we can go collate this, and hopefully come up with a plan, or find Hotaru and hope she came up with a plan that doesn't involve dying."

"Last I checked, Phil, your PhD was in linguistics and mine was in medicine," said Nadine. "That sounds like something a geologist would need to decipher."

"Which is why we're going back to Haruka and Michiru's apartment, to run up their long distance bill."

∙ ∙ ∙

"Don't listen to Haruka-san," said Chibi-Usa once they were sitting on the edge of Mamoru's bed, far enough away they couldn't be heard talking but still close enough for assistance. "She can't see the good in anything, she doesn't know what she's talking about."

"Yeah. She has, I don't know, a martyr complex or something. I just don't know if she's right anyway." Hotaru sighed. "I know I've told you this before. I'm just boring you."

"No, no, I want to talk. I'm your friend and I want to see you be happy. You have lots of friends, and all of us want to see you be happy! I wish you could see that."

"I know. And it's sweet. But it's not like I can just decide to be happy. I've tried 'just putting a smile on' and I only feel worse for living a lie." She flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "I'm sorry you got involved with me, Chibi-Usa. I'm not going to be the friend you deserve and I'm only going to end up hurting you."

"No you're not! Nothing that you did would ever hurt me." She paused and thought for a few seconds. "Well, unless you like kicked me or punched me or something, but that's not the same kind of hurt. And you have plenty of reasons to be happy! Nobody who has friends should ever be sad, because friends make everything better, right?"

"You're the only friend I have, Chibi-Usa-chan. And I don't think..." She sat back up suddenly. "No, we've done this. What's it like to be a princess?"

Chibi-Usa blinked a few times as her brain changed gears. "Uh, it's nice? I mean, I haven't seen a lot of it, and I'm learning how to be one, but I know it's what I want to be. A lot of people respect and look up to me, and I can make a lot of people's days just a bit brighter." She giggled. "Plus, I have a gigantic bedroom and have all kinds of dresses and toys and I can hold huge parties and I live in an awesome crystal citadel. It's a lot of fun!"

"Yeah..." Hotaru looked down and fidgeted with her hands. "It sounds like it. You probably wouldn't know firsthand, because, you are one, but I think almost every young girl wants to be a princess. I know I did."

"And now, you are! Kinda."

"I had it all laid out in my head. I wasn't going to be any old kind of princess, I was going to be a tsarina kind of princess. I didn't really know that much about them, just saw a few pictures, and I built up this image in my head. I would wear these, these rich opulent furs, and it'd be in the far north and I wouldn't have to go outside a lot anyway, and I'd have a little sun umbrella for when I did. I'd be married to a square-jawed war hero who tended to my every need, but of course I wouldn't need as much because the princess doesn't need to have blood drawn or her lung function tested or get an injection or have her back rubbed with some kind of goop every week, and I wouldn't get winded running down the stairs either. And we'd live in this huge palace, with a great ballroom with one of those gigantic double staircases for the royalty to make dramatic entrances from. And we would hold a huge masquerade ball while there was a driving snowstorm outside, and nobody would know who anyone else was, but me and my husband would always find each other because our bond of love was that strong, and then we'd get up on the balcony and address our loving subjects, and my husband would pull out his calvary saber and he'd bellow about how great our nation was, and everyone would cheer, and I'd lean in on his arm and rub my face against it, and his tailors would make him special uniforms where the left arm was plush satin for me to nuzzle on, just for when I did that."

"That sounds really nice, Hotaru!"

"Then, I actually found some books about the tsars, and the Romanovs, and I read about how the dynasty ended. Their people got fed up with how richly they were living while they let the peasants starve, and so they revolted, and they rounded up the whole family and had them executed. Their teenage princess daughter, they thought she might have escaped, but it turns out she died with the rest of them. And, I knew I should still have my fantasy but I just couldn't do it anymore. Because every time at the end of the ball a bunch of armed men break in because I've been a bad ruler."

"That's... awful. But, but it doesn't mean that's going to happen to you!"

Hotaru sighed. "It was my fault really. Most people, the first thing they know about the Russian tsars is how the Romanovs got executed."

"I didn't know that." Chibi-Usa's history education started with July 20, 1969 and moved forward from there, and she never paid much attention anyway.

"It's not like, I think, I can't be a princess because then Bolsheviks will come in and kill me. I don't want to be a princess any more. It's a responsibility. You have to be a ruler, a stateswoman, and every single thing you do has some kind of symbolism to it. Everyone is watching you all the time and all of their expectations are crushing you and if you screw up or your family screws up people are miserable. I didn't want that on my shoulders, because, I knew I'd screw up.

"And now... I find out Dad was setting me up to end the world, and most of what he did for most of my life was all to make that happen. and most of the people I knew were in on it. And then I'm also a reincarnated Princess of Saturn who can wipe out all life on the planet. And I have to die to kill the thing that I helped summon, only maybe I don't but even if I do I'm still going to be a magic warrior who can blow up the planet, and I have to defend it, and nobody asked me, and I'm too dangerous to keep around, and... it's too much for me. I can't do it. I can't keep going."

"It was a lot for Usa-ko and the rest, too, but I know you're strong enough. Right?" Chibi-Usa looked into Hotaru's eyes and smiled, but when she did not receive one back, she squared her jaw. "No, that wasn't a question. I KNOW you have it in you, Hotaru-chan. Because if you didn't then you wouldn't BE Saturn. You, you just sit there and you're so sad all the time and you don't want to even be alive and you think that you're a terrible person and it's tearing our hearts out to see you hurting like this! How can I tell you that you're a good person and we all love you so you'll listen?" She grabbed Hotaru around the midsection and shook her for emphasis. "Why can't you see it, Hotaru? How can I let you be happy?"

Two impulses warred inside Hotaru. She knew Chibi-Usa didn't understand that it was more complicated than just that, but she knew she wanted Chibi-Usa to be happy now, and that won out. She returned her friend's hug and softly stroked her hair. "Thank you, Chibi-Usa. I wouldn't be anything without you."

"Yes you would, Hotaru. Yes you would!"

--

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

T.E.S. PERIGEE

Owned and commanded by Ruben 'Rubeus' Zavarjelos, the Black Moon's flagship 'Perigee' terrorized the Sol system as well as nearby Alpha Centauri, Sirius, and Upsilon Andromedae for decades. The Black Moon exploited Queen Serenity's known distaste for large standing armies, and the need to devote all such forces to the front lines of the Second Galactic War, in order to perpetuate a string of brutal hit-and-run attacks against the heart of Solar territory, framing every case in which she fortified a planet's defenses as evidence of the tyrannical lusts of a power-mad Queen.

Originally a 'Starburst'-class luxury liner, Rubeus claimed the Perigee from its previous owner after he staged a hijacking of the liner during a dinner party held on board and he pyrokinetically incinerated the ship's captain. The Perigee was then taken to a Black Moon outpost on the asteroid Chiron for refitting. The ship was painted black to suit the organization's name and to be harder to see against the darkness of space, and the crystalline spines around the ship's hull were fitted with lasers, missiles, and jammers; camouflaging the real weapon systems among the nonfunctional spikes and making the real ones harder to target and disable.

Most of the luxury facilities were gutted, though the holoprojectors were retained on most decks in order to make the ship appear larger from within. The reason this luxury liner was stolen, the rare (and commercially inviable) psychoportive transport system, allowed the Black Moon to jump between any decks of the ship without needing to cross the intervening space, and many decks of the ship do not even physically connect in order to provide more room for cloaking, detection, and weapons systems. The psychoportive system also allows teleportation of objects or daimons from one area affected by a dark matter gateway (or unshielded reactor) to another, incredibly useful for deployment of guerilla forces.

For all the space-saving benefits of the psychoportive system, there are good reasons it never caught on commercially. It requires enormous quantities of power, and if the reactor becomes damaged and power output drops, then it becomes impossible to walk from one area of the ship to another. The dark matter reactor is unshielded, placed in one of the largest, emptiest rooms on the ship, and overclocked beyond any sane or rational standard -- physical damage will cause it to go critical before anyone but the most skilled Mechalus engineer could intervene.

∙Unshielded Reactor: The dense and powerful dark matter reaction gives all Mindwalkers, FX Adepts, and Talents who are accustomed with the power field a -2 step bonus to the use of all FX and Psionic skills while on board, and the interior of the ship counts as being near a dark matter gateway. The ship is considered an R2 environment with "moderate" radiation, even though it is not gamma radiation per se. Characters must make a Constitution feat check for radiation poisoning for every week they spend on board unprotected; the ship's hull does not mitigate this, but chemical supplements can ward off the radiation's effects. If Reactor C is damaged and no successful damage check is made, no matter how severe the damage, it suffers a critical damage effect in the Marginal phase of the next round.

∙Psychoportive System: Because all areas of the ship are instantly accessible, systems can be placed very efficiently and the effective Durability used for building the starship is increased by 20. If power is cut to the system, passage between any two rooms of the ship becomes impossible. Generally, during a starfall, the crew assembles in the crew quarters with enough supplies to feed and entertain them for five days and shuts off the psychoportive system to devote all the power to the stardrive.

CREW ROSTER:

Captain - Ruben 'Rubeus' Zavarjelos

Gunners - Kimiko 'Karaberas' Ayakashi - Chikayo 'Cooan' Ayakashi - Shen 'Spineh' Ping - Torio 'Topai' Ihara

Droid Technician / Chief Engineer - Siegfried 'Safir' Demando

Engineers / Technicians - Yoshiro 'Ohpir' Fujiwara - Tatyana 'Tormarin' Barsukov - Amalio 'Amuthysto' Navarro - Ivanna 'Ivori' Katchora

Navigator - Marcus Demando (highest ranking Black Moon officer)

Communications / Sensor Operator - Esmerelda 'Esmeraude' Carballo

Computer Tech - Kyung-Hwa 'Quartiz' Tea

Ship's Doctor - Rebecca 'Beruche' Ayakashi

Quartermaster - Tazu 'Petz' Ayakashi

Deckhand - Jeff 'Pyrite' Stillman

"Perigee"  
Durability: 20s / 20w / 10m / 5c Hull Points: 80 (104) Toughness: Lt Target: +1 step Maneuverability: 3 Power: Two Dark Matter mass reactors and one overclocked, unshielded, incredibly unsafe mass reactor providing a total of 56 power factors.  
Two accumulators capable of storing up to 20 power factors.  
Engine: Twin Gravitic Induction engines providing acceleration of 4 Megameters per phase FTL Drive: Stardrive capable of making 10 LY starfall.  
Armor: Heavy Cerametal providing d8 / d8 / d8 armor value.  
Defenses: Stealth Shield giving +3 penalty to missiles, sensors attempting to target this ship.  
Stardrive Scrambler giving a +4 penalty to sensors determining this ship's starfall destination.  
Repair Bots giving -3 bonus to Damage Control checks.  
Crew: Quarters for 18, life support given by Autosupport system, 6-seat command deck. 100 cubic meters of cargo space with crucifixes to hold 6 prisoners. Onboard droid workshop.  
Computer/Communication: Good-quality computer core with dedicated sensor control system. Mass detectors providing 360-degree coverage to a range of 10/30/50 at a +1 penalty, mounted spectroanalyzer, laser- and mass-based communication transceivers.  
Weapons Systems:  
Dual-Mounted Tractor Beam: Front arc, 100 Hull of towing capacity, 2/4/8 range, -1 acc, 5 power factors each.  
Dual-Mounted RF Spike: Front arc, En/∙ 3d4s/3d6s/2d4w, 1/2/3 range, -2 acc, 6 shots, 6 power factors each.  
Gauss Gun: Front arc, HI/M d6+1w/d6+2m/d4+1c 2/4/6 range, +2 acc, 6 power factors.  
8 Plasma Missile Racks: Sponson-mounted, 4 for each fire arc, En/L d6+3w/d8+3w/d6+2m, -3 acc, 64 missiles, 1 power factor each.

COMPARTMENT (Roll)  
System - (Hull Points/Power Factors)

FORWARD (8-10:  
Tractor Beam - (3/10)  
RF Spike - (4/12)  
Gauss Gun - (8/6)  
Workshop - (2/1)  
SD Scrambler - (1/1)  
Laser Comm. - (1/1)  
Spectroanalyzer- (1/1)

FORWARD CENTER (3-4:  
Cargo Hold - (3/0)  
Mass Reactor C - (4+28)  
Crew Quarters A- (2/0)  
Computer Core - (1/1)  
Sensor Control - (1/0)  
Mass Comm. - (1/0)  
Autosupport - (2/2)

PORT (11-14:  
Missile Rack A - (2/1)  
Missile Rack B - (2/1)  
Missile Rack C - (2/1)  
Missile Rack D - (2/1)  
Mass Detector A- (1/1)  
Accumulator A - (1/∙)

STARBOARD (15:  
Missile Rack E - (2/1)  
Missile Rack F - (2/1)  
Missile Rack G - (2/1)  
Missile Rack H - (2/1)  
Mass Detector B- (1/1)  
Accumulator B - (1/∙)

AFT CENTER (3:  
Stardrive - (4/12)  
Mass Reactor B - (4+14)  
Crew Quarters B- (4/0)  
Command Deck - (2/0)  
Stealth Shield - (2/2)  
Repair Bots - (4/4)  
Psychoportation- (2/10)

AFT (5-7:  
Grav. Engine A - (8/8)  
Grav. Engine B - (8/8)  
Mass Reactor A - (4+14) 


	12. Double Bind

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and the DARK∙MATTER setting was written by Wolfgang Baur and Monte Cook. I own neither of these things, and expect that if either of those last two people Google their own names they are going to be incredibly confused.

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

The Gates of Time, a free-standing doorway to nowhere situated dead center in a vast featureless plain. Sailor Pluto stands ever-vigilant guard over these ornate doors, for if one were to pass through them, he could traverse history and cause inconceivable damage in the process.

Isci ba Fan cannot cross through time by this means and does not care besides. He would be unable to bring most of his body with him through the Gate, and to travel backward in time would mean there was something he regretted enough to change. He learns from mistakes, but he does not regret. Regret was for the weak and frail.

The dark matter gateway that usually contained the Gates of Time in a no-space dimension pocket had expanded outward as more power was drawn from it, and now the entire north and east walls of the main kinori cavern were replaced with the vast expanse of the Gates, its floor and gravity off from normal by 20 degrees. Two huge Tesla coils were set next to the Gates, sending bolts of brilliant green lightning into each other, and machinery was affixed all over its frame, the cables leading from them going into even more machines and devices all over the cavern.

Kinori technicians darted to and fro, manning the machines, and looking worriedly at the three decapitated corpses laid in the middle of the room. The Gate-Keeper kept stressing she did not rule by fear, and would not kill a subordinate simply for failing due to circumstances outside his control. And as far as they had discovered, this was true, because at this point when the Gate-Keeper heard information that made her angry she killed the nearest living thing regardless of whether it had been the one to displease her. They were operating machinery they could barely comprehend, and when the Gate-Keeper was in the room it was a hellish game of Musical Chairs to not be the one standing closest to her when someone inevitably screwed up.

Fortunately she was not in the room right now, having traveled to the antechamber with the daimon incubator. The large-type daimons were vastly diminished in reasoning capacity and had to be programmed with all of their responses to circumstances; the last time this was done with the daimons and their hypnotized human support teams, the results had been disastrous. But things, of course, promised to be different this time, and so Kher-Aya was now monitoring the Gate and its progress.

"Do we have an estimated time?" the blackscale asked, smacking the stock of his shotgun into his other claw. "Gate-Keeper grows impatient for the Master's arrival."

"Uhhh... Less than 24 hours. I think. If I'm reading this thingy right and everything is... you know... calibrated." The technician lightly flicked the monitor with one of his talons. "Actually, we need to talk about the Gate-Keeper."

"What is it now? My time is valuable."

"The fact that she keeps impaling and decapitating people? She's dangerous, she's insane."

"Stop failing and maybe you'll have nothing to fear."

"Yes, yes, I understand, Great One," the technician said, waving his arms and bowing his head as a display of humility. The others all shuffled away from him to avoid being hit by stray fire. "We all trust that you have the nest's best interests at heart, but do you know she does? We've only just learned of her existence and she is already commanding our actions and carrying a weapon in the egg chamber. Maybe, you know, the other workers would be more comfortable if we had time to know her."

"I am the blackscale and my word is law. I'm the only one that has to know her and I am satisfied that any sacrifice we make to have her destroy the surface-dwellers is worthwhile. When we control the world of daylight and have infinite room to roam free, those who fell here will be remembered as heroes." He leaned in and his tone became conspiratorial. "We've scraped and survived in these cold underground caverns for too long, subsisting on their cast-off detritus. I'd be a fool not to take any chance to improve our lot in life." He looked around to make sure nobody was listening in. "And yes, I'm aware of her control issues. The eight-man honor guard following her now is ordered to attack her at once if she appears to be betraying or endangering the nest as a whole. I'm not a blind fool, and she cannot repel a coordinated assault from them if she is surprised."

"Oh. I never should have doubted you, Great One."

"I will ask her about her interactions with the nest if it worries you." Kher-Aya groaned slightly. "...Actually, I'll send a subordinate I don't like to ask her."

∙ ∙ ∙ SAILOR∙MOON: DOUBLE EXPOSURE

CHAPTER 12: DOUBLE BIND ∙ ∙ ∙

HOUSE OF COUNCILLORS OFFICE BUILDING, LOBBY NAGATACHO, TOKYO, JAPAN TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1995, 4:12 PM

"...and it was a nightmare, because to stick together, every time Usa-ko did something to get sent out into the hall, both of us had to do something to get sent out with her. " Makoto punched Usagi on the arm playfully. "Now they think we're all on the path to slackerhood like her."

"Hey, don't pretend it was all her fault. He caught you for doodling that one time, and I had to take a dive for that!" Minako stuck her tongue out at Makoto.

"I don't know about you two, but I was, like, freaking out the entire time, jumping around at every sound and movement because I thought something was going to jump out and get me. I was so paranoid and trying to be watchful," she paused and put her finger on her chin in contemplation, "I think I ended up paying more attention in class than I have in years."

"Ha!" Rei barked. "If your parents get sick of your grades, maybe they should hire you a stalker instead of a tutor." Usagi opened her mouth to respond, but Rei shushed her with a hand as they approached the receptionist. "Hello!" said Rei, and flashed her student ID along with her winning smile. "My name is Hino Rei, Hino Takashi's daughter. My friends are doing a project on the legislative process, and, we were going to speak to someone involved firsthand." Rei paused, waiting for the receptionist to pick apart her story so she could counter it.

"Ah, yes, Hino-san. Your father told me to expect you, he's waiting in the office up on the ninth floor."

Rei blinked, but showed no other sign of surprise. "Yes, well, I just wanted to check in. We'll be on up, then."

"You told him we were coming?" whispered Usagi.

"I thought you said we were going to use the disguise pen and get at his files," added Minako. "And then if that didn't work, we were going to transform in the ladies' room and have four Senshi demand he reveal what he was hiding, for justice. 'And maybe rough him up a little,' in your words."

"I didn't tell him!" Rei rasped. "We never even talk to each other. I have no idea why he'd tell them to expect me. Maybe it's wishful thinking."

"Maybe I'm keeping my hand on my pen," whispered Makoto as they entered the elevator.

∙

Hino Takashi sat behind his desk, not even trying to appear cool and in control. His shirt and tie were rumpled, his hair was unkempt, his posture was that of a man exhausted, he was holding a cigarette smoked down to the filter, and on his desk was a bottle of sake, three-quarters empty. The feng shui of the defeated politician. "Oh. Hello, Rei-chan," he said as his unlocked door swung open, without meeting her eyes. "That was quick. I didn't expect you to even get the message so soon."

"Don't call me '-chan', 'Dad'." Pure contempt seeped from every one of Rei's words, leaving burning streaks on her father's ears. "What did you want from me now?"

Takashi glanced to her friends and did a little math in his head. "Close the door first, okay? I don't want the whole hallway hearing it."

With a great put-upon expression, she shut the door and locked it, while Usagi, Minako, and Makoto edged to the other side of the room. Getting involved with this fight was going to be a bad idea. "There," said Rei, "Now what's the big -- oh Jesus Christ, are you smoking again, after how hard Mom had to try to get you to quit?" Rei was a devout Shintoist, but she learned to swear from Catholics.

"You're a Sailor Senshi and you didn't bother to tell your father or grandfather about it, okay? I think that counts more than me taking up smoking."

All four girls went wide-eyed and slack-jawed. "WHAT?"

"Yeah, okay, you're a Senshi, you're probably either Sailor Mars or Jupiter depending on how the disguise works, and you brought your friends because they're Sailor Senshi too, I imagine." He rested his cheek on his palm and sighed. "Last year it was two aliens, who went by the names Ginga Seijuro and Ginga Natsume, and then a demon army running out of a black spaceship, and now it's a bunch of science-witches trying to summon a demon and end the world. And even though you don't look the same, too much has been happening at the Hikawa Shrine and your periods of absence from school have matched up to when the Senshi were in periods of intense fighting, and we put two and two together. We've known about you, specifically, since October."

"And you were going to keep it a secret that you knew, so you could spring it on me like this?"

He banged his fist on the desk and shouted, "No, I wasn't, my superiors were! I know you like to think of me as the source of all evil, Re... Hino-san, but this is a bureaucracy. People are giving orders to me from so high up I can't even see them."

Rei snarled. "Who gave you the order to let your wife waste away in the hospital without ever visiting her, the Bureau of Heartless Assholes?"

He chewed his lip and looked into his desk. "I didn't call you up here to have an argument, I called you up here because I need your help."

She crossed her arms and stared defiantly but he still would not meet her gaze. "Well, I think you wasted a phone call."

"Okay, then I called you up here because the people of Japan need your help. The government hasn't got involved in Sailor Moon and company because we don't want a paper trail and we don't want to tie you up in bureaucracy. And after this, we will stay out of all your hair and let you fight space alien cyborgs and we can pretend we never met. But we've found out that some of those youma-things have been infiltrating the police, posing as FBI agents. Nasty customers who--"

"--who can read minds and shrug off any hit they see coming and warp between shadowy areas," Minako finished. "We've heard of them. One of them has Sailor Mercury."

"And we'd be out looking for her instead of here if we knew the slightest thing about where and how to find them," added Makoto.

"All I knew about was the mind reading part. We don't know if there are more of them still uncovered in the police hierarchy, or in other government agencies, and we were wondering if you could give a few departments the once-over and use your, your Senshi skills to deal with them. We would have let you do it on your own, but we thought that doing internal-affairs sweeps wasn't usually on your itinerary. That's what your father..." Rei glared, "...what the government wants from you, okay? Find out, or tell us how to find out, if there's any youma in the NPA or the ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, or Defense."

"Okay. But you have to do something for us. That's how it works in your little world, isn't it, favor for a favor, quid pro quo, you scratch my back I scratch yours?" She tilted her head like she wanted an answer but she didn't wait for one. "We need a map of the tunnels under Tokyo."

He looked genuinely confused. "Why? Nobody's used those since the 70's. There's not enough room for an evil headquarters in there, at least, I thought."

"There is an entire nest of kinori somewhere in there! They're working with the Pharaoh, they're what we need to find. And we can't search the tunnels on our own, there's too many of them."

"Wait, is a kinori a type of youma?"

"No..." Now Rei was confused too. Takashi was in with Kunimatsu Takaji, he knew about youma, why wouldn't he know about this? And why would he lie about it if he did? "No, they're lizard-people that live in an underground cave network under Tokyo. Those tunnels were dug to help them access everything in the city better without being seen."

"Honey, that would be news to me. As far as I can tell, they were dug for some kind of alternate-evacuation scheme in case of World War III, and a bunch of contractors started digging caves to nowhere to rack up their costs, and the project was cancelled in 1978 because we were going to too much effort to spend too much money for something that was totally useless." He shrugged and held out his hands. "I'm not going to call you a liar, you are the one fighting the demons after all, I'm just going to say that this is the first I've ever heard of kinori, or secret lizard societies underneath Tokyo."

"I thought they were in league with the lizards," muttered Minako. "I'm actually kinda disappointed."

"Ask Kunimatsu Takaji about it," said Rei, "because, apparently, kinori and fraal hate each other's guts."

"Okay, now what is a 'fraal'?"

Rei blinked in disbelief. "The aliens. The Greys. Kunimatsu Takaji is one of them. I thought you were in on all of this?"

"Kunimatsu Takaji is an alien? Damn it, how much else are you people hiding from me!"

"Look, look, it doesn't matter, okay? Somebody knows more about those tunnels than you do, and we need to know what he knows. Because we KNOW there are these kinori things underground and we need to know how to find them. If you want us to help you with your problem, you HAVE to help us with ours."

"I'll, I'll do what I can, okay? See who I can rouse in Records, among the people who know you actually exist outside of folklore. I can't make any promises, information like this doesn't get released easily, but I will try."

"You've said THAT before."

He tried to take a drag of his by now long-dead cigarette. "Well, usually the thing I was trying to do didn't involve the summoning of a space-demon, okay? So I have a bit more of an incentive. But if you don't get on this thing with the police department, I'm not going to have any chips left to cash in to get your map. Don't do it for me, will you do it because youma infiltrating the government is a bad thing?"

"Yeah. Tell whoever it is you have to tell that Sailor Moon's been notified and is officially working on it." She was about to leave, then remembered one last thing. "Oh, and I'm Sailor Mars, by the way. I tell you that so I can tell you, if you tell anyone else about me being a Senshi, I am going to immolate you."

"Not a word, I promise. I know you don't want to believe this, but... I really do l--"

"Finish that sentence," Rei intoned darkly, her left eyebrow twitching, "and I swear it will be the last thing you EVER say. Come on girls, let's get out of here before I do something I won't regret."

And the other three girls waited until they were out of the office, out of the elevator, out of the lobby, and on the street to say anything. "Wow," Makoto finally remarked, "You really, really don't like your dad, do you?"

"That bastard let my mother die a slow, agonizing death without ever being there for her because he thought his career was more important." Rei spat for emphasis, not something she usually did, but it felt appropriate. "I may have the misfortune of sharing some DNA with him, but that doesn't mean a thing. I am not his child and he is absolutely not in any capacity my father."

"I'm surprised he knew..." Usagi looked around at the other people on the street, "...surprised he knew your secret, but none of that other stuff."

"Yeah, I didn't get that either," Minako added. "I thought once you were In On It, you were, well, In On It. He was a lot less useful than I would've thought."

"Welcome to age six through age fifteen," Rei said bitterly. "At least I know that the next time he talks to Kunimatsu Takaji it's going to be one of the most awkward conversations he's ever had. I wish I could see it."

"Yeah, conversations with... those kinds of people tend to be that way."

∙ ∙ ∙

"That took you long enough," said Nakami as Haruka and Michiru entered the apartment. Haruka was carrying a heavy box that he made no attempt to help her with.

"We had to find a pickup truck," said Haruka as she set the box down on the table, "because we don't know what kind of supplies your employee is having delivered that we'll have to haul around, and my father didn't know we were going to use one."

"We also went shopping for supplies," said Michiru, rummaging around in it. "Six pairs of night-vision goggles as per your suggestion, since you said the light level would be very poor, some climbing rope, and one hundred chemical glowsticks." She paused and pulled out the shirt she was looking for. "And a change of clothes for Haruka and myself as we could not get one from our apartment."

"Guns?"

"I know that in America you can walk into store and walk out with an artillery piece every time you like, but here in Japan the licensing process alone takes months."

"Huh." Nakami picked up one of the pairs of goggles, it was brushed metal and encrusted with lenses and looked like the kind of thing only the richest fraal would have, much less humans. He struggled to get it on without jabbing himself in the eye, even though to Haruka and Michiru it looked as if fit perfectly over his head. "These look really nice. Expensive. Did you two knock over a bank or something to just be able to buy six of these at the drop of a hat?"

"We're cooperating in order to solve a problem that faces all of us, and we are even listening to your advice on how to do it. Please don't turn this into another argument."

"Well, from what I heard from Hotaru," Nakami gave up trying to put on the goggles, his eyes were much larger than the rubber areas meant to go around them, "and from my people, I got the impression the two of you were supposed to be bloodthirsty, evil people. And I don't believe that you are quite that bad, but that doesn't make you 'good'."

"Sailor Moon and her retinue revile us because we tell them things they don't want to hear," said Haruka. "We tell them that closing your eyes and wishing isn't going to solve every problem they encounter, and one day their luck in that regard is going to fail, and it is going to end in tragedy. We make the sacrifices they're unwilling to and they think it makes us evil."

"I would have thought," added Michiru, "that someone in your position would agree with ours. I know that your problems are not solved by blind, unthinking idealism. I know you must have at some point sent men to their deaths."

"My problems aren't some greater meaning," said Nakami. "They're aliens and weird critters and government bureaucrats thinking they're the lords of Creation, nothing more. It's not a choice between, 'close your eyes and hope' and 'throw a guy into a wood chipper'. I have sent men out and they have died, yes, but I never sent them for that purpose."

"Then you were right before. You obviously don't know the slightest thing about the forces at play here."

"Isci ba Fan's not an analogy! He's not a, a referendum on idealism versus fatalism! No, I'm not going to say, if it really and truly is the only way to stop this hellish psionic demon from entering our world, that I would say Hotaru shouldn't give her life to stop it. Because that would be asinine, since she would die anyway. But I don't know that's the only way! You don't know that's the only way!"

She grabbed him by the tie, the only part of his clothes that existed, and pulled his face toward hers. "Listen to me, you ungrateful little alien. The only reason you are even here to complain is because people like me are willing to make the tough choices to keep the world safe. If we were all like Sailor Moon, we'd sit in a circle wishing for the monster to be our friend, and if we were all like you, we'd be paralyzed in inaction as we frantically searched for an option that didn't seem icky to us, and then we'd half-ass something at the last minute. If someone doesn't step up and make these decisions everyone is going to die. And Hotaru is the only one that can kill the Pharaoh, because she's Sailor Saturn, and that's her destiny."

"You can't just justify it with--"

"And if that is not enough for you, it's her destiny because to be able to cleanse a planet she has to be able to output teratons of force. Nothing else anyone on Earth has comes close enough. She was born with this power, it's something that she herself cannot stand to live with, and it's the only thing that can solve the problem." She released his tie and let him fall a few steps backwards. "That's what destiny is. Destiny isn't everything turning out okay, it's the horrible and inevitable result of factors totally outside of our control. She didn't ask to be Sailor Saturn. She didn't ask to have the ability to kill herself to destroy worlds. But she is, and she can, and there's a hellspawn creature out there that can't be killed any other way, so there is only one way this ends."

"It doesn't make us happy," said Michiru, "and we don't relish it. We wish it could not be true. And... that is part of why Haruka and I resent Sailor Moon so much, because she gets to view destiny as a cushion, a protector, insurance that everything will turn out all right. But I know it won't, and you know it won't. Destiny is a cruel and callous whore and it sends all of us to ignoble, painful ends. So if we seem angry or vindictive, it is because they are rejoicing in what we will never have and we know it will only make it hurt more when it all comes crashing down. And we know we will have to watch, and do, horrible things, and that nothing we can do will stop it."

"I... don't believe in destiny."

"Now look me in the eye," said Haruka with no trace of anger or superiority, "and tell me you believe in happy endings."

Nakami looked her in the eye for several seconds, but couldn't say a word.

∙

Hotaru was supposed to be napping on the couch, but was really just laying there with her eyes closed, eavesdropping. She didn't want to go back to sleep because, she knew who she was going to see as soon as she did. So she would just stay here for a while and pretend to be napping and then advance toward her own destruction as before. Someone else pushed her legs out of the way and sat down on the couch, and -- damn it.

Hotaru sat up, sighed, and looked at the woman sitting next to her. The seven-fingered woman in the black dress with the red scar on her neck whose face looked like her own. She'd fallen asleep again.

"Princess Hangaku," said Hotaru, not really greeting her so much as stating a fact. "Why didn't you come last night?"

"You woke up too early. I had to talk to your friend, instead." She sighed. "And now I'm talking to you because there's a few things I forgot to tell you."

"About how it's really a wonderful thing to be Sailor Saturn?"

"No. Well, okay, that too, but not just that. You just... 'know' about the whole Silver Millennium the way the rest of the Outers did, and you remember how to swing your weapon like you remember how to ride a bicycle, but there's other stuff nobody mentioned."

"...Like what?"

"Okay, well, like the other things about the Silence Glaive. You've already figured out that it vanishes when you aren't touching it, so nobody can steal it." She started to count off features on her fingers, then realized she shouldn't do that on the hand that only has two fingers. "Uh, we thought it wouldn't be good for me to have a weapon that can cut through anything and then get pitched forward by an explosion and slice myself or another Senshi in half, so part of the magic on it is, if it's about to cut into human flesh and the blade is outside of your field of vision, the blade will disappear instead. So, if you think you're about to swing into someone on your side, close your eyes."

"How did you lose your fingers, then?"

"That was what made us think to put that... particular safety feature on it." She looked at the finger-stumps on her hand and sighed. Hotaru realized that meant Hangaku had to be looking right at the blade she ended up chopping her own head off with, and shuddered. "And, it only works on humans, so... you'll have to be very careful around Artemis and Luna, or around any objects you want to keep intact."

"Did you ever test it?" Hotaru didn't need to specify what she was testing, they both knew.

"You mean did we wipe out a planet? No. But it was crafted by Queen Serenity to have that power, and I was given the mantle of Sailor Saturn in order to have that power, and she was among the most powerful sorcerers the world had ever seen." She looked down at her hand again. "I know I never doubted her or it. I just wish you could see it, up close, for yourself. That you'd really see the Silver Millennium, and know what a beautiful, wonderful thing you've been given, and how special and great it makes you."

"So it might not work at all, then. The planet-destroyer. It might not work."

"Hotaru, I think you know the answer to that. Or you will."

"But you won't tell me. Like how I have to work out if there were aliens there." She laughed, bitter and empty. "Because if there were, then it was like Atlantis, and the whole Kingdom was a bunch of people who thought they were way cooler than they really were, and I've inherited a legacy of failures and broken promises. And if there weren't and the Silver Millennium really was the perfect beautiful place, I've inherited a horrible power and standards I'll never live up to, and you can't tell me which. What a choice."

"Nobody can tell you which one is true but you." She sighed. "But it doesn't matter anyway if you can destroy a planet. You'll never have to use it. All you have to do is trust Sailor Moon."

Hotaru stood up, there was a whole dream-apartment here and her anxiety made her feel like she had to be moving around in some way. "Sailor Moon who loves everybody and she'll make everything okay with the power of love and friendship."

"When you say it that way, it sounds stupid, but it's exactly what she does. There's a very good reason she's the Queen, even if she is a bit of a klutz."

Hotaru walked to the table to find something for her hands to fidget with, but the box on it was empty; the dream didn't go into that much detail. "I don't, I don't doubt in her, so much as I doubt in the power of love and friendship. You, and her, and Chibi-Usa all say it is the cure for every ill, and it's a wonderful thing to have... but I can't see it as a panacea. It's wasted on me."

"Hotaru, no! You know that's not--"

"No. No, it is true. I'm a walking curse, Hangaku. I have murdered people, I have hurt people--"

"That's not you. That wasn't you then and it isn't you now, that's just depression talking."

"I think I have some real reasons to be depressed! The people who loved me in the past, I responded to with ingratitude and hate. I'm not a happy, well-adjusted person. I can't just wash that off. I'm not a princess. I'll never be a princess. I'll never be beautiful and happy and self-confident and charming and elegant. If I'm Sailor Saturn, I'll never be able to live up to the good parts, I'll always be the creepy one who can kill everybody. Chibi-Usa loves me... I don't know why she would." She sat down on the floor, cross-legged, and she started to sniffle. "She's the only one, you know? She's the only person I ever... If I didn't have her, I'd be so much more lost. My only friend. My one, only, friend left. Isn't that sad?"

"That's not true. Usagi, Ami, Makoto, all of them, they're all your friends."

"They're all Chibi-Usa's friends, and they think that we're friends just through that. That don't know me. It's no comfort to know that someone who doesn't know me approves of being my friend in a general sense."

Hangaku winced, not really sure if she wanted to say this, but decided she had to. "And what about the lady doctor? She's never met Chibi-Usa and she loves you. She was up all night watching you because she was so afraid you would hurt yourself."

"She only did that because her boss said he wanted to hire me. It isn't the same thing as what Chibi-Usa feels."

"No, she wasn't. She thought it was a stupid idea... I know you love Chibi-Usa. But you won't be betraying her friendship if you let other people in. People all around you want you to be happy, Hotaru, and people who you've just met want you to be happy. What will it take for you to want you to be happy?"

"I don't know." Hotaru thought it wasn't so much about wanting to be happy, as the possibility not existing.

"Look me in the eye, Hotaru. I'm your past self, I'm your soul. Look me in the eye and tell me there's something that you can see or that can happen that will change your mind. Even if you don't know what it is yet. Promise."

Hotaru closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and thought about it. Then, she met Hangaku's gaze, and said, "I promise."

∙ ∙ ∙

Time slid onward. The sun began to set, and lengths of time that felt like eternity when they were being chopped and thrown and punched, now went away in the blink of an eye. Philip marked a map of Tokyo with a Sharpie as he spoke to a geologist in Scranton, Donna stood by the door with the sock full of batteries, and Bill and Nadine watched TV and tried not to drive themselves insane with more fruitless worry. It wasn't working very well.

"So..." Nadine said, hands on her knees. "Hell of a thing, huh?"

"Ah-yup." Bill was on his knees in front of the TV, flipping through the channels since the remote didn't work.

"Don't suppose you have any ideas how we blow up an alien demon from space, and another dimension?"

"Nope." He paused on a channel when he saw Arnold Schwarzenegger, then flipped away when he saw he was selling some kind of energy drink. "This place is weird, huh?"

"It's a different culture. My mother thought what we did in America was weird."

"No, no, that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, not like Tokyo, I mean crazy supernatural crap in Tokyo."

"That's always weird."

"Well, okay, yeah." He put out his arms in the classic 'you got me' gesture. "It's in the definition. But I mean, how Uranus and Neptune have this apartment that costs an ungodly amount of money, and evil Dr. Tomoe had an ungodly amount of money and he's building stuff in downtown Tokyo out of his own pocket. And there's magical princesses, with bulletproof leotards and magic lasers, against a witch coven with like twenty PhDs who summon monsters that only the magic lasers can kill."

"Feel like we just stumbled into the Big Leagues?"

"I dunno. Kinda. I feel like I'm waiting for the Candid Camera guy to come out. I feel like, nobody's this good, nothing fits together this well." He stopped again, only to see it was the same Schwarzenegger commercial as before. "Something has to be up."

"Nothing is up, Bill. They're just plain better than us. It's a feeling we all should be really used to by now. They've got destinies, I know we sure as hell don't." She sighed. "Once this is over, and they probably solve it without our help, we should just get on a plane back to the States and not screw them up any more."

"They're not better than us," Donna said without looking from the door. "They just do different stuff than us, that's all. It's like comparing... uhh..."

Bill clapped his hands together and pointed at her. "Like Superman and Batman. Superman can fly and punch like a train and he's got heat vision, and Batman is just a guy. So Superman punches aliens, but Batman's a detective and a scientist, and he does a different kind of thing."

"I was going to use a less dorky analogy, Bill, but, sure. These guys do lasers and demons, and we do investigation and stuff."

"Well... Wait, Go back, go back! That was the news!"

Bill went back down two channels to the news report, and even though he could not understand the chipper newscaster, Nadine could. "...has now confirmed, that Metropolitan Police Headquarters was in fact attacked, by operatives attempting to break out prisoners held in the detention cells. Unfortunately, the names and pictures of these escapees are unavailable at this time."

"Oh, thank God," Nadine said.

"The NPA is responding to this terroristic aggression with all due force," said a man in a suit on the TV that the caption said was Kunimatsu Takaji. "We advise Tokyo's citizenry to be unintimidated by these threats, but to report any suspicious activity to local police authorities."

The newswoman continued. "The Ministry of Justice now reports that one of the masterminds of the attack, a woman named Arimura Yuko, is already in police custody." The image switched over to a grainy videotape with 'Courtesy Tokyo Metropolitan Police Dept.' in the corner. There was a red- and purple-haired woman in a hospital bed, in a neck brace and with casts on her arms and legs, glaring up at the camera. Nadine's jaw dropped. "Arimura sustained heavy injuries while attempting to flee arrest, and is currently in police custody in an undisclosed location until she is medically fit for detention." The image swapped again to a file photo of Arimura Yuko in better times, in a white lab coat with bright crimson hair and eyes, wearing large red star-shaped earrings and a pair of rectangular eyeglasses on the end of her nose, looking vaguely surprised. "Arimura is believes to have been involved with the recent destruction of the Mugen academy, where she had been impersonating an engineering professor for some time. No word yet on what charges, specifically, she will face, or whether or not she has been offered a plea bargain."

"'Undisclosed location' my ass!" Nadine shouted. "THAT'S where I know that name from! She's at Juuban General, she drove her car off a cliff because she was going like ninety miles an hour!" She looked around at everyone, not sure of what response she wanted. "They made me go in there and change her dressings and drain her abscesses. She was not in condition to move her. The terrorist witch who was trying to end the world, that's in an undisclosed location, we know where she is."

"See? There we go. We're Batman. Superman wouldn't go track down and pump the bad guy for information."

∙ ∙ ∙

Nobody else had been looking at the TV because nobody else recognized Arimura Yuko's name. Hotaru did. She was Eudial, and she was alive, and she was in a hospital room in a hospital where Hotaru had been. She recognized the place.

She should have told everyone, but she didn't. Because Eudial tried to kill them, and they fought back against her, and Hotaru didn't quite want to talk to Eudial. Even though that was the name she used most of the time, she thought it was different. And if Eudial had been the evil witch, then Arimura Yuko was the one she talked to, and she needed to talk to her. She could talk to Eudial while she was there, but if the others came, she wouldn't be able to talk to Yuko. Selfish and foolish but she did it anyway.

She waited until they were ready to leave for the airport and pick up the delivery. Once Haruka, Minako, and Mamoru had gone downstairs to leave, Hotaru said she changed her mind and wanted to go with them, left to 'follow' them and crept out the back way. She got half a block before Chibi-Usa caught up to her.

"Why did you go off on your own, Hotaru-chan? Where are you going?"

Hotaru sighed and slowly turned around, expecting to see everyone else following her as well, but it was just Chibi-Usa. "Eudial-san is in the hospital. Not under the name 'Eudial', of course. I need to go see her, and I... I have to go alone."

"It isn't safe. If you go out on your own, people will worry, and if something happens nobody will know. If she tries to hurt you..."

"No. Chibi-Usa. She won't."

Chibi-Usa was confused for a second, blinked, but then understood it. "You don't want to go there because you want to, like, get information out of her. You want to go there because she's been hurt. And if someone else was there she'd just be an enemy."

Hotaru nodded, shivered with shame.

Chibi-Usa thought about Eudial, how every time she's seen her red dress and white hatchback she'd been attacking someone, extracting someone's pure heart, summoning daimons. At the teahouse, the school, the cathedral, she was greedy, violent, callous, and cruel. And she looked into Hotaru's eyes, and she remembered what Hotaru had said about knowing her when she was younger, and she saw her lip quiver... "If you want to see her, then you should be able to see her without everyone else screaming and attacking. You deserve it, Hotaru-chan, and nobody should stop you." She laughed and tried to lighten the mood. "I know Usa-ko would screw everything up, and Haruka-tachi would be all 'blarg, an enemy, let's sacrifice someone to stop her'. But I wanna go with you to make sure you're safe. Is that okay?"

"...It's always okay for you to come with me, Chibi-Usa."

"I'm happy you say that, Hotaru! Plus, I can bring the Luna-P and record it if she says a whole bunch of technical stuff."

∙ ∙ ∙

"Find Makoto?"

"Yeah, but, couldn't get her alone." Statler took off his hat and scratched his bald, lumpy head. "She was sticking with Moon and Venus at all times, even in the bathroom. Probably trying to avoid this," he waved an arm at Sailor Mercury, "whole thing right here."

"Oh, they'll get bored of moving in packs soon enough. And Ami's done." Sailor Mercury -- Shadow Mercury -- was no longer tied to the chair and was staring straight ahead, arms folded in her lap, waiting patiently. Her fuku was slightly more sinister looking, all th white areas now turned jet black. On her finger was the sapphire ring, her Mercury Computer was a sleek black palm-top, and her tiara and earrings were now silver set with onyx. Her hair blew around slightly as if a breeze were coming from her shoulders, small wisps of smoke came off her skin like it was dry ice, and her eyes were a uniform milky white.

"That does look pretty cool," Statler remarked.

"Not that you should care about that in the slightest degree. Ami, do YOU care how 'cool' you look?"

"Sir, I do not."

"Well, looks like the brainwashed slave has one thing up on you." Waldorf took off his sunglasses, wiped off the lenses, and handed them to Mercury. "Ami, do you care about anything that isn't doing what we tell you?"

"No sir, I do not."

"Anyway, you gotta take her out and show her how her stuff works, while I stay up here recuperating from being shot a thousand times." Ami put on the glasses to mask her unnatural eyes, stood and walked to the door, then waited obediently with her hands folded and her face downward.

"Oh, no no," said Statler with an ironic chuckle, "After YOU, Ami-chan."

"Yeah, have fun with your new toy!" Waldorf snarked. "Ass."

∙ ∙ ∙

An unmarked panel truck waited for them on Runway F of the Haneda airport at precisely eight-thirty PM. It appeared only one man was with it, a young, well-built man in military fatigues who looked more than slightly twitchy and unstable. The three of them had transformed before arriving, and Venus and Uranus changed back into a more normal set of clothing while Tuxedo Kamen left his hat, mask and bow tie in the car. They needed to be prepared if something went wrong, but couldn't look suspicious.

The man surveyed them with completely unmasked disdain, wondering who the hell these people were, then recalled he didn't care at all who these people were because he was going to be square either way. They stopped in a triangular formation and looked at him expectantly, as if there was some kind of secret code exchange they were waiting for. So he thought for a few moments and decided on, "And Bill?"

"Bill sent us," responded Kamen.

The man nodded at some point behind them. "Did you bring a horse for me?"

Kamen furrowed his brow in momentary confusion, because he had no idea what this man was talking about, and all three of them got ready for trouble. "Excuse me?"

"Once Upon a Time in the West? Anyone? No?" The man pointed his finger out at them and smacked the base of his hand like it was an imaginary six-shooter. "'You brought two too many', ka-pew-pew-pew! Gooood movie. Of course they wouldn't have it here in Japanland."

"Do you have the delivery?" asked Uranus, in a serious tone that hopefully masked the fact she had no idea what the delivery was.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it here. Didn't expect him to send anyone like you, but what do I give a shit for, right?" He opened the back doors to reveal a large, rectangular, olive-green crate marked 'PROPERTY OF U.S. ARMY'. "I don't care if you guys are Yakuza street thugs, I delivered this shit, on time, we're even. If you do happen to see Bill, tell him he's totally cashed it in. I don't care what dirt he has, or what he did for me in Afghanistan. He could pull my newborn son out of a volcano and I still would never owe him another favor ever again. You copy?"

"We... copy that."

"Good! Now help me with this thing, it's goddamn heavy." Handles were set on the side, and Kamen and him grabbed one each, and lugged it over to the pickup. Uranus and Venus felt like they should help, but there was really no room for them to get in and grab anything, and ended up standing there staring at them like total jerks. As soon as the box was loaded up, the man jumped into his van and left without so much as a 'goodbye'.

"Well," remarked Uranus, "The 'PROPERTY OF U.S. ARMY' stencil indicates to me that this is not going to be your magical problem-solver device."

"Hey, it could still be some top-secret experimental military device!" said Venus.

"Or it could be a rocket launcher," said Kamen as he looked into the box. "And one, two, three assault rifles." He tapped the back of the lid and let it fall closed. "Now we're arms smugglers."

"No, you're the arms smuggler," said Venus with a wagging finger. "I'm just an accessory."

∙ ∙ ∙

Chibi-Usa said that if there was a guard posted, she could use the Luna-P to hypnotize him into letting them in. And Hotaru kindly and earnestly asked that she never, ever use that feature on anyone ever again. It reminded her too much of Mistress Nine and Wicked Lady to ever be comfortable with.

Luckily for them there was no guard. Fingering Arimura Yuko had been a complete Hail Mary pass for Kunimatsu Takaji, considering that the most severe infraction she could be charged with in court was her numerous speeding infractions and reckless driving citations. The hospital video was only there to justify why she wasn't being tried. No special guard was in place, she wouldn't be worth the expenditure and was evil anyway. Hotaru and Chibi-Usa walked in to her room like they owned the place.

Eudial was propped up in her bed, looking much better than she had in the video. Her neck was still in a brace but her eyebrows had mostly grown back and her hair wasn't mostly scorched purple anymore. Two I.V. tubes went into her arm, and by her elbow was a button she could click for a dose of morphine. She was reading some engineering trade publication and didn't even look up when the two entered. Chibi-Usa picked up Eudial's chart from the edge of the bed, realized she had no idea what anything on it meant, and put it back down.

Hotaru cleared her throat, Eudial set the magazine down and looked at her, and immediately started to squirm. The waves of discomfort coming off of her were palpable. "...Oh."

"So, uh... How are you feeling, Yuko-san?"

"Oh, good, good. No, no, not really, but, I'm better than I was." Her voice cracked and squeaked. "Does Mimette know I'm here?"

"Mimette is dead." The words were heavy and fell out of her like balls of lead.

"Oh. How did she die?"

"From what I heard, she tried to use one of your devices and amplify her power, and Tellu pulled the plug on her." Hotaru didn't know if Eudial would celebrate or mourn, or which would be worse.

"Witches Electric Warp? That thing was flawed from the first blueprint. I abandoned that prototype nine months ago, whole idea was stupid. Dumb bitch deserved what she got twice over if she thought she could hack up that piece of shit." Hotaru sighed. Celebrate. That was the worse option. Eudial saw her reaction and got defensive, adding, "Mimette cut the brake lines on my car, stuck snails on the gas pedal simply to gross me out, and then broke in on my radio frequency to gloat right before I went off a cliff. I was inches away from death and she couldn't be bothered to finish the job. There were third-degree burns all over my body, my legs are twisted and mangled, I've got one kidney, I'm blind in one eye, if someone sneezes at my vertebrae wrong I'll be a quadriplegic, I have to go to physical therapy to be able to walk and move my arms again... I've been in agony for months. So yes, I'm happy she died."

"But you... when she did that to you, YOU were trying to kill the Senshi, weren't you?"

"And when they thought I was dead, I bet they were happy about it." Chibi-Usa wouldn't say she was happy, but she was relieved, and it was weird to see her talk so candidly about this. Did Rubeus and Esmeraude talk like this when nobody was around and there was no reason for propriety? "Mimette thought I was dead, too. You all did, I'd wager. I was in no condition to speak for a long while, and I didn't exactly carry photo ID in that skimpy Death Buster dress. I couldn't get my equipment down here and I couldn't really ask around Mugen without getting smothered with a pillow, so I had to lay low here since. Cops found out who I was and I had to get a few hours of interrogation with a bigwig, but I don't think they had things on the books to charge me with and they didn't really care that I wasn't naming names. Haven't been following the project but I guessed it wasn't going well. So, if you're wondering where I was, that's where."

"...Do you think Dad would have visited you if he knew?"

"I would hope, but maybe not. Apparently he was getting kind of fed up with how often Sailor Moon was cocking things up, like it's my fault and I wasn't the one who found two goddamn Talismans."

"Yeah... He could get like that sometimes, I think." She chuckled and smiled a little thinking of a few times when the time for grant proposals was drawing near and he was freaking out around the house, even though he didn't need the grant money he just needed to be part of the process, and then when it was all over he'd talk about what a goofus he'd been, mockingly imitate his own voice to make fun of the little things he thought were so important, and take them for ice cream. Then she realized that this behavior was relating to how her father treated his evil subordinates for failing on their quest to destroy the world. "I would have visited you, if I knew. They didn't even really tell me you were supposed to be dead."

"There wasn't much of me to visit there for a while. I guess if you want to call this a visit, I'll say it counts."

"It is. Sort of. You can guess why I'm here, but... I wanted to know if you were okay."

Eudial gestured to the IV stand and the neckbrace, "Well, Hotaru-san, I can say I have been much better. But I suppose I'm not as bad as I used to be, if that makes you feel any better."

"Did you like me, Yuko-san? Eudial? I don't know, either one of you. When you came by and you would show me some cool new game you got, you were just making it easier for Mistress Nine to take hold, right?"

Eudial looked Hotaru right in the eyes, not as a challenge, not as defiance, a show of seriousness. "Do you want me to lie to you?"

Hotaru broke the gaze and looked down at her feet. "Yes... Yes, I guess I do."

"You meant nothing to any of us, just the vessel to end the world. We lied to you the entire time." No rage, no guile, no sarcasm, no irony, barely any modulation to her voice at all. "Even your father."

And she knew, because she'd asked Eudial to lie, that it wasn't true. But she wanted it to be. She wanted so very badly for it to be true, even though it would tear at her heart, it would devastate her and it may even kill her to know that her father didn't love her and every act of kindness she received was a lie. Because then, they were all monsters who hated her and she didn't have to think about them, she wasn't contaminated by associating with them, she wasn't one of them. She would have been lied to by evil. She wouldn't have loved evil and have it love her back. "I changed my mind. Tell me the truth."

"You were our boss's cute little daughter and he never shut up about you. He thought you were the greatest thing in the world. If we were working on discovering the Higgs-boson we would have come to see you a few times anyway. And, you were a cute little kid, Hotaru. You were pretty easy to like. You can understand why the most of us didn't have too many friends outside the workplace, there was no reason to really be bitchy to you, someone nobody could really object to. Tellu and I painted the town a few times but most of the other Witches had issues with each other."

"I liked Tellu. I only saw her three, maybe four times, I knew she was just my father's coworker, but... she made me feel like one of the 'big kids'. I guess that wasn't part of her mission." Hotaru swallowed, like the words hurt her throat coming up. "She died too. Her plant ate her."

"Yeah..." Eudial wished she could turn away, but it was impossible to do in a neck brace. "We have to keep work and personal life separate. Or we'll go totally insane."

"Viluy and Cyprine too. Trying to kill the Senshi."

"I didn't really know Cyprine. She wasn't a scientist." Nervously glancing around the room, she spotted a little pink-haired girl she was pretty sure had bit her on the arm in the middle of a mission. "What happened next?"

"You were trying to summon Master Pharaoh 90 and end all life on Earth. Make me into the Mistress 9 to do it." Tears welled in her eyes. "It worked up until the last second. Mistress Nine is dead now. Dad and Kaori too. Everyone but you and me. It turned out I was Sailor Saturn, and then someone accidentally stopped the summoning with a... a rotator magnet..."

"Rotating magnetic resonance disruptor? Those things are horribly inefficient. Had to be a lot of power put through it." She hiked herself higher up in her seat, and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "I actually worked on some of the first models of those. I was going to see if I could use one to shut off the Senshi's powers, but it's too tricky to calibrate and the power requirements are too high to--"

"Why did you do it?"

"In all honesty we thought by the time M-9 fully manifested it would be so close to the end you wouldn't care." She couldn't shrug, but she could put up her arms and make a 'distance herself' gesture, even though it wouldn't matter. She wanted to put the confrontation off for as long as possible and every second was worth it. "I wasn't much involved in the implantation. I was in the technical, engineering side."

Hotaru's hands were shaking. "Why did you want to kill everyone? Did the Pharaoh promise you power or wealth or something if you summoned him?"

She laughed, mirthless, the laugh of a person who hates every aspect of herself and every decision she has ever made since her birth, and yet could not possibly have done things any differently. "He did, but I didn't believe him. Mimette might have, but she's a dumb bitch. No, we knew we were going to die and there was no chance anyone was going to live through it. It's not like we were going to explain this to you when you were older, we didn't want to live that long."

"If you wanted to kill me anyway, why not, why didn't you lash me to a chair in the basement and feed me intravenously until the time came?"

"We didn't hate you. I said, you're a pretty good kid, Hotaru, at least from what we saw. I don't expect you to believe it, but, there you are. But you weren't a happy or a healthy kid, and even if we hadn't been growing a demon in you, you wouldn't have been. You know what it is I'm talking about."

"Then, then if you liked me how could you do it at all?"

Eudial wouldn't have shrugged even if she had the range of motion to do so. because it felt like her whole body was weighted down with lead. "We had to keep professional and personal opinions separate or else we'd all have to be so deranged we'd be unable to function. We all had different ways of dealing with it. Mimette, from what I hear she actually may have been an intelligent person before she fell behind a facade of bimboism so she could say she didn't understand anything she did. Viluy disowned all of her emotions so she could distance herself. Your father played up the differences between his persona at home and his persona at work so much it was almost like two personalities and he could disown all the bad things he did as being the work of another."

"It wasn't?"

"Not as much as I think he liked to pretend. Otherwise when he wasn't 'possessed' he'd be working to stop what he did. And when he was, he wouldn't have loved you. He agreed to summon the Pharaoh in order to have him save your life after the accident."

Hotaru looked down at her feet. "Then this is all because of me."

"I think that if you had died, and I'm not convinced the Pharaoh really did anything to save you, he would have found some other way to complete the summoning and done it faster. You're talking to a suicidal nihilist warlock and I can say that the darkness inside your father's soul scared me. It scared him, too. You and his wife were the only things keeping him remotely sane and he knew it, he figured a life without you was not even remotely worth living. He tried to replace Keiko but he didn't fool himself or anyone else for a second.

"Kaori... Kaolinite never acknowledged her desire to have children and started seeing you as a surrogate, then when she realized it, acted as if she hated you so she could distance herself from what she had to do and what she perceived as her own weakness. She thought if she made you hate her she'd be able to safely hate you. It didn't work." Eudial drummed her fingers on the back of her other hand. "Good Lord, that woman was a train wreck. But it wasn't just you, Hotaru. We may not have had many loved ones or things we cared about, but we had some, and everyone had to reconcile that with what we were doing."

"And you? How did you deal with it?"

With no hesitation, no pause for soul-searching, Eudial responded, "I profiled every human being I met, trying to reduce all of their quirks and behaviors, their free will, into simple and quantifiable causal relationships. I tried to see everyone's behavior as predictable and mechanical. You can't program an accurate, predictive computer model of the behaviors of half a million people without a very in-depth understanding of social psychology, and if I used that to reduce every human into a heuristic equation, I wouldn't have to acknowledge what I did to them as a human being."

She sighed again. "And, I admit I felt pretty cool driving around at breakneck speed in a really tight-fitting labcoat shooting people with a lepton cannon and deploying demons. It felt good. I felt powerful. But it didn't last, did it? I wasn't good and I wasn't powerful and it all came crashing down and look at me now. The human condition."

"So that's why. Now you're going to tell me man is a corrupt and evil creature that deserves to die." Hotaru was a little happy at this, it was an explanation she could firmly reject and denounce and not be tainted by association with.

"I think that was Cyprine's motivation, not mine. No, the world is an awful place for us human beings because to be human is to be miserable and suffer. Almost everything we do to make it through the day is either deliberate self-deception or an outright lie." She started twirling her hair in her hand, not even aware she was doing it, just needing an outlet for all this nervous energy. "The heuristic behaviors that are deep-programmed into all of us ensure we'll be a ball of misery forever. All happiness is fleeting and all our suffering leaves deep, lasting scars. Something bad happens to you in your childhood and it can destroy your psyche forever, but if something good happens to you it doesn't make you a good person. We inevitably grow to hate everything we have and we're consumed with regret and remorse over everything we lose. Our capacity to cause suffering in others without even thinking it is orders of magnitude greater than our capacity to make people happy. So many things and so many ways for a human mind to just, to just snap and be destroyed, and it never goes back. Good God do you know how many ways a blow to the head can maim your ability to think?"

And now Hotaru was laughing too, and nearly as bitter as Eudial had been. "So you weren't punishing the world. You were committing mass euthanasia."

"'Universal suicide is the most logical thing in the world - we reject it only because of our primitive cowardice and childish fear of the dark.'" Her expression was one of pure and universal contempt. "Mankind isn't special and we weren't created and we don't have a destiny and almost everything we ever say to justify or mitigate our suffering is self-deception or a total lie. There's no God, there's no afterlife. Happiness can't be attained. We're random assemblies of cells that through freak of evolution has the ability to feel anguish, and it's in our immutable natures to try and survive to just keep suffering, and create more individuals to keep suffering and it's just... it's time to end the farce."

Her hands and her eyes were shaking and Hotaru never thought for a second she was trying to convince herself, for she clearly was convinced. She just wondered if Eudial hated the world or she hated herself more. "'Pure Hearts' are an ironic name for a power source generated by certain psionic fields. There's no soul driving our actions, we're organic computers with more defects than features, feeding ourselves false data in order to keep going. There's nothing more after this. There's nothing now. Everything, EVERYTHING is another boil of mental anguish waiting to burst. Keeping anything alive is cruelly prolonging the inevitable."

Chibi-Usa was quivering and talking into her own hand, but she was not interrupting, because she promised.

"You're wrong." Hotaru was surprised she said that, considering that was how she felt about herself. "Maybe people like you and me can't be happy. Maybe a lot of people would be happier if they died. But you can't choose that for them."

"They won't make the right choice for themselves. Everyone's going to keep going and keep suffering because the subconscious dictates they can't control, tell them to keep going and keep suffering."

"Then it's their right not to, if they want to be miserable in some distant hope it'll be better. And people ARE happy. And, and, and people can BECOME happy. I know that Chibi-Usa's happy, and I make her happy, and even if I can't be happy then that's at least a reason to keep me going."

Chibi-Usa's voice was whisper-low, and Eudial had to strain to hear it. "It makes me very sad, that that's how you feel Hotaru. I love you and I don't want to hear you say, that you'll never be happy and there are lots of people who are so miserable they should want to die. And... Eudial, it makes me sad to hear you too."

"I don't need your pity." And clearly, Eudial didn't, and she hated herself for it all the more.

"I thought you just hated everyone and you'd cackle and say you did it all for evil's sake. But you're sad, all the time, and you, and you think everyone feels like you because you can't imagine ever not being sad. Like when you get really sick and you can't remember ever not feeling sick. And both of you, you're so alone. I try to cheer you up Hotaru but I can't do it all by myself, and Eudial, you don't have any friends."

"Don't talk to me about the 'power of friendship'." She was crying, but trying not to act like it. "That doesn't work that way."

And the next thing Chibi-Usa said she was not even fully aware of until it escaped her lips. It was the second most mature and grown-up thing she ever said. "You're right, it doesn't work like I thought it did. Friendship isn't a magic spell and it isn't a power-upgrade and it's not something you can sprinkle on a bad guy and turn them good, and I kept thinking of it as this big, this shapeless, blob of happy things that is everything good to everyone. Everybody has lots of reasons to be sad, and maybe... maybe people like Hotaru and you are sadder than others. And all our friends, they all take a piece of sad away, so we can just, go on and do other things and be happy. I kept acting like I could keep telling you I was your friend and it would make you happy and I was wrong, Hotaru. I was wrong. The power of friendship isn't a magic wand to make everything better, it's, it's something you have to work at that really pays off, and it doesn't make everything better, but it lets everything be better." She inhaled deeply and nodded. "That's what Mama wanted me to learn."

Eudial looked at the far wall. "What, you think I'll just say I'll see the light and come over to your side?"

"I want to be your friend, Eudial. You tried to kill me and my friends, like, a whole bunch of times. And it wasn't all okay, either, but I want--"

The door opened again, and a woman in a doctor's coat walked in and, without really looking, picked up Eudial's chart and scrutinized it. Her coat was stolen, but the name tag on her pocket really was hers. "Okay, I have a few..." She looked up and the chart dropped to the floor. "Oh my God... Hotaru?"

She ducked forward, not even really registering the presence of the two other people in the room. She grabbed on to Hotaru, and she squeezed for all the was worth. "Oh my God, I was so worried about you! You got away from the police, but we didn't know where you were or what you were doing or if you were okay, and we didn't have any way to find you... I am so, so, so glad you're okay."

"You didn't have to worry about me. I was fine, really. I've been with Chibi-Usa and her friends."

They broke the embrace, and Nadine saw Chibi-Usa standing next to Hotaru, beaming. "Hi!" she waved. "I'm Princess Usagi Small Lady Serenity, but you can call me Chibi-Usa."

"Oh. And I'm, uh, Doctor Nadine Leslie Neary. You can call me Nadine." Chibi-Usa put out her hand and Nadine bowed, then Nadine put out her hand and Chibi-Usa bowed, then they both laughed, Nadine more nervously than Chibi-Usa.

"And this..." said Chibi-Usa, "Is Eudial. Er, Arimura Yuko-san."

"Okay." She blinked. "You do know she's a crazy evil sorceress, right?"

"Yes, yes, we've been through all of this," Eudial tried to sound snarky enough the doctor didn't notice her tears.

"We were just asking her..." Hotaru inhaled, "why she did all of it."

"Did she tell you how to STOP all of it yet?"

"Ha!" The laugh was forced but no less bitter. "I don't even know if you can stop it. He's not going to go away if you stop the summoning this time, or the next, or the next. It's not like you can seal a portal and get him out forever, the portal is already closed. He's not going to stop until he finds a way in."

"Just for the sake of argument. Can you tell us, exactly how you're doing what you're doing?"

"Okay, fine. Let's see your power of friendship go to work." She didn't want to admit it, but she'd been stewing in regret and self-loathing in her hospital bed for too long. And she was too self-aware to say anything but to tell the truth she was a little bit, slightly touched by Chibi-Usa's declaration. And having that bit of hope only meant it would hurt more when it was let down. So she decided, tell them what's happening, let their hope be crushed when they fail. "Master Pharaoh 90 is a demon of horrific power that is composed of two pieces. One piece, the largest one, resides in a dimension almost completely out of phase with ours, and the other, tiny piece, is his consciousness, which is here. They pull toward each other naturally but they can't break through dimensions because of the same reason things from other dimensions don't fall in here all the time. Think of it like a wall, or, or a piece of cardboard with magnets on either side of it. With me so far?"

All of them were, to their mutual surprise.

"Good." Eudial also liked being able to talk science to people who weren't just glazing over and nodding like Mimette and Cyprine. "The phase barrier in between these dimensions is thick and it's strong and it takes a massive amount of power to breach. I don't mean like magical sorcerer power, I mean exajoules. The Holy Grail was going to put out that amount of power, but I'm guessing they found some other way."

"They did."

"Burrowing through the phase barrier is kind of like digging, only as you go deeper, the energy required to keep digging goes up exponentially. It turns out, we found, to actually create a full-fledged portal to this dimension would require more energy than we'd get if we built a Dyson sphere around the sun and it went supernova."

Chibi-Usa didn't know what a Dyson sphere was, but she still got the general gist of it and didn't want to interrupt.

"So we hacked up a solution. We'd use our machines to weaken the phase barrier as much as we could, and then we would set it up so that his big piece would fall toward his little piece, and his paraspatial inertia would smash through the remaining width of the barrier like a brick through a plate glass window. We set up a little anchor that he'd fall much faster towards because it was set up so strongly in this world."

"The Mistress 9. I was the anchor."

"Yes. You were. It had to be a living, intelligent creature and the younger the better."

"It didn't work. She's gone now and apparently my brain got so much practice fighting her off that nothing else can even try to get a hold."

"Huh." She seemed genuinely surprised and interested. "Cyprine said that was a possibility, but if you hadn't built up an immunity by the time you were ten you never would."

"So the anchor's gone, right?" asked Nadine. "Mistress 9 was the anchor, she's dead, no more anchor."

"Well, if the summoning was stopped at the last second, the anchor did its job. The big part is still falling toward the small part with the same force. He finds another person to thin the walls, and he smashes on in. I don't know of any way to lower the pull between his two parts."

"We could kill him," Hotaru said.

"You are very welcome to try but I don't think the survivors will be happy with the results."

"Sailor Moon will find a way to stop him!" said Chibi-Usa.

"Power of friendship isn't going to work on a going-on ten thousand year old psionic demon, honey, and you said that yourself."

They all looked up at Nadine expectantly, and she shuffled her feet and coughed. "Don't look at me, I sure don't have any ideas."

"Well... We'll figure something out, okay!" Chibi-Usa hopped to the side of Eudial's bed and wanted to hug her, but pulled back when she saw the neck brace, and squeezed her across the chest instead. "And I meant what I said about being your friend. We're gonna go save the world now and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to show you why it was a good thing."

Eudial rolled her eyes, fooling nobody. "You can do whatever you feel like for all the good you think it will do."

"You said you profiled everyone. Reduced their behavior to equations. What AM I going to do?"

"You're going to kill yourself," said Eudial with no more gravitas than she did when she said what time it was.

Hotaru knew she should make an argument against that, but she couldn't, not now. She made her way up to where Chibi-Usa had stood and looked into the neck brace. "I think I could make you better, Yuko-san. I think since I'm Saturn, I can heal injuries... you probably know that."

"Can you heal every wound every time any human being is horrifically maimed by a slight change in circumstances beyond their control?"

"...No."

Tears were coming again and, she gritted her teeth. "Then I don't see how that would make a damn bit of difference in anything, would it? Keep it to yourself."

Hotaru sighed, nodded, and followed the other two out the door... then she turned back. "If you change your mind, please, just tell me. I know a lot of people who would be willing to be your friend, I think. I... I'm pretty sure I would have been, too."

And she tried to hide it, but Eudial really thought about it. "...Turn off the light. It's late and I want some sleep."

∙

The other Hoffmann agents were sitting in the lobby on the first floor, waiting for Nadine to return. They did not expect who she would come down with.

"Miss Tomoe?" asked Donna, incredulous. "How the hell did you get here?"

"Holy shit, we found Hotaru! Or, she found us! Or something!"

Nadine waved meekly. "They were already up in Arimura Yuko's room when I got there. They had the same idea we did."

Chibi-Usa furrowed her brow at all the talking in a language she didn't understand, then remembered she came prepared. She whispered "Luna-P, henge!", waited for the puff of smoke to clear, and put on the cat-eared headset microphone that came out. Now, she could hear what they were saying translated into Japanese, although for some reason she never got this thing to do so without a Kansai accent.

"Well, hey, we know she's okay, right?" Bill nodded at Chibi-Usa. "Is she your friend?"

Donna looked at the pink-haired girl and blinked. "And wait, have I seen you somewhere before?"

Chibi-Usa started speaking in Japanese, and as she did the words came out of the cat-ears in English, in a perfect replica of her own sweet, cheery voice. "Hi! I'm Hotaru's friend, Chibi-Usa." She curtsied to them in a very ladylike manner. "Are you the people that help-- are you her new friends?"

Philip blinked and shook his head, not really expecting the cat ears to be a translator. That was a neat little trick. He tapped himself on the chest, then pointed to his partners. "Oh, uh, Philip Akens, Donna Truitt, Bill Wheeler. Is she one of the, ah, the you know whats?" Hotaru nodded.

Donna leaned over towards Hotaru and got caught in the nether-zone between a full hug and a playful hair-tousle. "Where have you been, Miss Tomoe? Nadine was worried sick about you. I mean, we were all worried, but... you know."

"I've been fine, really. I was staying with some friends. Have you been all right?"

"Oh, you're not going to believe it," Bill said. "I've been axed, arrested, broke out of jail, got smacked around by a giant cell-phone monster... It was a hell of a Monday. Oh, and Uranus and Neptune, the ones that were all going to kill you? We've actually been in their apartment while they're off being evil, that place is huge!"

Hotaru coughed. "Uh, Mr. Bill, Uranus and Neptune are working with us now."

They all suddenly found their shoes or spots on the wall very interesting. "Oh, no... Then you probably shouldn't mention I said that, huh?" He looked down at the clothes he was wearing, then up at Donna's school uniform. "And... hope they don't recognize their stuff, I guess."

Hotaru would have said something, but that was the moment they all heard the clapping behind them. The slow, mocking clap appropriate for the haughty and the contemptuous. The receptionist was gone, the other doctors or patients were gone though there hadn't been that many to begin with, and behind them, leaning against a support pillar while in the shadow cast by the supplies left all over for renovations, was a smug-looking Man in Black. "Quite the tearful reunion you have here, don't you? Four Hoffmann agents, our Mystery Saturn Bitch, and the little girl from the future. Were I not certain your God was a childish lie, I would think he was smiling on me to put you all in one place."

"Well if it isn't Sam the Eagle, kids."

"Oh, you're very cute, Donna. By the way, you're not going to make it look like Hotaru's your sidekick if you keep calling her 'Miss Tomoe' all the time. And Hotaru-chan, sweetie, Nadine is only so fond of you because she's never been able to hold a relationship with a man for more than two dates, has never had children, and stupidly thinks that if she can be a surrogate mother figure for you she'll make up for that glaring flaw."

Bill rose to his feet. "And I once drank my own piss on a bet, oh yeah, secret's out there. You can kiss my ass, G-man, I don't care about your stupid games and if you think you're shaking us up by revealing our 'deep secrets' you got another Goddamn think coming."

"If you throw that chair at me, William, I will swat it out of the air and I will shoot you in the forehead. Besides, wouldn't that be more Dr. Akens' area of expertise?" Philip bristled. Now the Men in Black were making chair jokes. "Oh, and Hotaru, I wouldn't think about transforming if I were you. Chibi-Usa, I don't care about you, because you've always been totally useless. Transform away if you're childish enough to think it matters."

"Is that what you do all day?" Donna asked, arms folded. "You just show up and use your mind-reading powers to be a complete asshole to people?"

"What I do all day is so, so far above you you will never even be able to perceive it, let alone understand it," said Statler, lying through both rows of his teeth. "Today, however, I've come here to show you something."

"Okay, you've shown us you're an ass. Now piss off," said Donna. Nadine and Philip both wondered why Donna and Bill had to be so antagonistic to evil shadow-men with guns.

"Missed the mark again!" He wagged his finger. "Your record is really rather dismal. I came here to smother Arimura Yuko with a pillow, but before I do, I came here to watch my new friend kill you all. Ladies, gentlemen, walking piles of psychological damage, why don't you give a great big fat Hoffmann Institute welcome to Shadow Mercury?" He stepped to one side to reveal Sailor Mercury, or at least, what had been Sailor Mercury. Donna, Bill, Hotaru, and Chibi-Usa gasped; Nadine and Philip had never seen Sailor Mercury before but could be pretty sure she didn't usually have solid white eyes, wisps of steam coming off her skin, hair blowing in a phantom breeze, or an evil black costume. She was smiling, wide, giddy with anticipation.

"Now do me a favor, honey, and show me how well you can kill them. Go for the one you can't read first, she's the only legitimate Senshi. Watch the blade. I'll stop them from escaping."

Shadow Mercury let out a low chuckle and cracked her knuckles.

--

∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ B O N U S C O N T E N T ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙ ∙

TOMOE HOTARU

AGE: 13

SPECIES: Human PROFESSION: Adept (Diplomat)  
TITLE: Sailor Saturn ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL: 4

STR 06 -1 INT 11 +1  
DEX 12 +1 WIL 13 +2  
CON 07 PER 11

Alien Artifact 8: Hotaru is the wielder of the Silence Glaive, see below.  
Psi Resistance : Hotaru's constant exposure to mental manipulation from the Mistress Nine has built up an immunity. All psionic or FX abilities that directly affect Hotaru's mind incur a +5 step penalty -- directed illusions, mind-reading, suggestions, mind control, memory erasure, telepathic contact, and the like. This defense cannot be lowered and Hotaru is never aware that it's been used. It has no effects on psionic or magical abilities that do not actively affect her mind; an effect that goes into her mind and removes her ability to see something is blocked, but an effect that bends actual light in order to make an object invisible is not.  
Delicate +3: Hotaru has severe respiratory problems. She receives stun damage from making unarmed attacks or engaging in stressful aerobic activity.  
Fragile +3: Hotaru is sickly and receives a +1 step penalty on Stamina -- Endurance checks.  
Despair +5: Upbringing, experience, and no small measure of chemical imbalance have given Hotaru a warped, melancholic view of her own worth and capabilities. While this depression obviously has many in-character effects, it has a mechanical effect as well. Any time Hotaru's player asks the GM what the total difficulty of a skill check will be, the GM reports it as being d4-1 steps higher than it really is, adding the extra steps to resistance modifiers, range, local conditions, etc.

Once the player has committed to the action, the GM reports the real difficulty. If Hotaru fails the use of any skill outside of a combat scene by 5 or more, she must make a Resolve -- Mental check any time she wants to use the skill again for the rest of the session; failure on this roll indicates she is so certain of her failure in that task that she cannot even try.

Combat Information:  
Weapon: Score: Range: Damage (O/G/A): Type:  
Unarmed 3/1/0 +1 Personal d4-1s/d4s/d4+1s LI/O Silence Glaive 15/7/3 -2 Personal d8w/3d4+1w/d4+3m LI/∙ Saturn Silencer 14/7/3 60 d4+1w/d6+1w/d4m En/O S. Glaive Surprise 17/8/4 60 d6+1w/d6+2w/d4+1m En/O Death Reborn Rev. 21/10/5 120 d6+2w/d8+2w/d4+2m En/O

Defenses:  
Saturn's Aegis Senshi d6-1OLI / d4GHI / d6-1GEn Saturn's Aegis Super d6OLI / d4+1GHI / d6GEn Saturn's Aegis Eternal d6+2OLI / d8GHI / d6+2GEn Silent Wall 14/7/3 Reduce firepower of attacks by 1 grade

Note: Hotaru cannot use her latter two energy attacks and Saturn's Aegis skills, as she does not have enough skill ranks for the increased effects. At 4 ranks each in Energy Blast and Saturn's Aegis, she can become Super Sailor Saturn, using the first improved armor stats and gaining access to Silence Glaive Surprise. At 8 ranks in each skill, she can become Eternal Sailor Saturn, uses the highest armor value, and has access to the Death Reborn Revolution energy attack.

Action Check: 13/12/6/3 Durability: 07 / 07 / 04 / 04 Actions Per Round: 2 Last Resort Points: 2 FX Energy Pool: 07

Athletics 6/3/1  
Melee Weapons 6/3/1  
Blade 3 9/4/2, but see below Acrobatics 12/6/3  
Dodge 2 14/7/3  
Vehicle Op 12/6/3  
Stamina 7/3/1  
Endurance 1 8/4/2 +1 Knowledge 11/5/2  
Deduce 1 12/6/3  
Language (English) 3 Physical Science 11/5/2  
Awareness 13/6/3  
Intuition 1 14/7/3  
Perception 1 14/7/3  
Creativity 13/6/3  
Resolve 13/6/3  
Mental Resolve 2 15/7/3  
Culture 11/5/2 Interaction 11/5/2  
Charm 2 13/6/3

Planetary Sorcery: Saturn Energy Blast 1 14/7/3 (Sonic)  
Lifeblood∙ 2 13/6/3  
Saturn's Aegis 1 Active  
Saturn's Veil 1 Active  
Silent Wall 1 14/7/3 (Energy Field)  
Unravel Enchantment 0 (Energy Control Entropy)

Alien Artifact: Silence Glaive:

The Silence Glaive is an enchanted polearm created over a thousand years ago (at the very least) by witch-artisans of the Silver Millennium and entrusted to the guardian of the planet Saturn. It can only be conjured by Sailor Saturn, who does so at will, and it vanishes if it leaves physical contact with Sailor Saturn (or her clothing) for more than two seconds.

The Glaive is phenomenally sharp no matter what material it cuts, and superbly weighted and balanced, requiring almost no exertion to swing. Mechanically, it allows its user to add her Melee Weapons -- Blade skill to either her STR or her DEX, whichever is higher, and provides a -2 step bonus on such checks. When wielding the Glaive, Tomoe Hotaru's Melee Weapons -- Blade skill rating is 15/7/3, -2

The Glaive is said to have the ability to obliterate a planet's habitable area simply by burying it point-first in the ground. Whether or not this is true -- it has never been tried -- this ability is too grand in scope to be modeled in this rules system. Any observer versed enough in arcane lore to know of the Glaive will take appropriate action to remove the threat to the planet. 


End file.
